The Soulmate Principle
by OfPaintAndOil
Summary: She'd never had a mark to indicate her soulmate was out there somewhere. Well, that is until she nearly kills him. He impaled her with a sword first—her actions were totally justified. She'd thought that would be an obvious sign that they should steer clear of each other, but he seems to have different ideas. Rated T. Deviates from canon, obviously. COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to _Naruto_.

* * *

She'd never had a mark.

Not once. The faint pinkish-red skin to show her that her (supposed) soulmate was out there, alive, albeit hurt. A darker hue to her already pale skin to show where her soulmate had been bruised, cut, stabbed, or otherwise hurt until it faded into her own normally colored skin once the original injury was healed.

Everyone was said to have one. A soulmate, that was.

She remembered when she'd watched Ino's arm turn bright red when they were twelve and coming to find out later Shikamaru had fallen off a roof when he was napping and broke his whole left arm. She remembered looking in the mirror in nothing but her underwear at home after a long mission, healing her own cuts and burns, but never finding any darker hued skin she couldn't heal, because they were only the shadows of the real injuries on a different person.

Tsunade had always looked at her with weary and sad eyes. "They might not be out there," she'd once told her, bluntly, like no else would. "They might already be dead."

It happened. They were shinobi, after all. And if her soulmate was a shinobi and not a civilian, the odds were stacked against her.

What was odd, however, was how she'd never had one mark. Even if her soulmate was already dead, she should have gotten the mark that killed them. The kill mark. The one mark that would never go away because it would never heal.

Sakura tried not to think about it too often. She'd never been overly fond of the idea of being predestined for one single person. She preferred choices, thanks ever so much. None of this destiny crap.

But when she stood in the cave surrounded by the remains of hundreds of creepy-ass puppets, her hand wrapped around the object she'd realized was once a beating heart, she heard Chiyo—bleeding, about to be dead Chiyo—gasp loudly.

Sakura forced herself not to look at her, refusing to look away from this puppet-boy called Sasori. She was bleeding and panting and sweating off dirt. She'd already been impaled with a damn sword and her clothes were hanging off her in tatters. There was no way in _hell_ Sasori was going to beat her because she took her eyes off him for one measly second.

She started to close her fist around his fake heart.

"No!" Chiyo gasped, and Sakura saw out of the corner of her eye as she raised one weak arm towards her, then saw it flutter back down to her lap where she lay on the ground. Blood trickled out of her mouth.

Sakura paused, not clenching any harder, but not releasing any pressure either.

Sasori was looking at her oddly. Frankly, Sakura had stopped really listening to the man—puppet? man? thing?—after the fifth time he tried to talk her into becoming a puppet for him. She was _so_ done with that day.

"Sakura," Chiyo gasped. "Look down."

She was most certainly _not_ going to look down. Rule number one when not trying to get yourself killed when fighting an Akatsuki member: _don't fucking look away._

"Girl," Sasori said. "Look down now."

Sakura let out a sound of confusion and indignation.

He sneered. "You have my heart in your tight little fist. I'm not going to try anything. Look _down_."

She looked down.

And stopped.

Her clothes hung off her in tatters. That sword of his had done quite some damage to her—besides the damn impalement—and to her clothes. One of the things it had done was rip her vest completely off her left shoulder so that her collarbone and a few inches of skin below were exposed. Sakura had been studiously ignoring that little detail and just counted herself lucky it was still covering all the important areas.

The area around her heart was red. Bright red. Blood red.

She blinked.

Then she looked up to see Sasori, who was also looking at her chest in something like rising fascination and horror.

And all she could say was, "Oh, _fuck_."

And then she heard Chiyo, off to her left, say in quiet amazement and fascination, "Fuck."

Sasori just stared, not blinking.

Her mind raced. His body was a puppet— _his body was a puppet_.

A puppet didn't get injured. A puppet body that wasn't his original body. And how long had Sasori been in his puppet body? Longer than she'd been alive, surely.

Shit. _Shit._

Sakura quietly cursed Kami.

Chiyo started to chuckle, the blood in her throat making it sound like something wet was rattling around. "Well, boy," she said to Sasori, "it seems that Kami still has some humor after all." She made a considering noise. "Ruined my chance of great-grandchildren, you did. Selfish boy."

And then she fell back on the ground, dead.

Sakura really, _really_ didn't know what to do. She sure as hell wasn't going to look back down at her chest to see the red lining where her heart was. Her hand was still clenched tightly around Sasori's heart.

It just _had_ to be a homicidal maniac who was who knew how old and had a fetish for puppets, didn't it?

"This is unfortunate," Sasori finally said.

"Hmm," Sakura said, her mind whirling. She was going to have a permanent red stain around her heart when she crushed Sasori's. She was going to kill her soulmate and it would leave a physical mark on her until the day she died. She was going to have to tell Tsunade and the others that her soulmate was—

She took a steady breath.

She closed her fist.

It made a sickeningly wet crunching noise. Some kind of thick blue liquid gushed out between her fingers.

Sakura watched Sasori as he watched her.

He smiled.

"Impressive," he murmured. "I didn't think you had it in you."

"You don't know me," she hissed, not understanding what was happening. Why was he still standing?

She risked a look down, saw that her deep red mark was still there on her chest, darker now. Permanent.

She heard him give a mirthless chuckle. "That, my dear," Sasori said, "was only part of my heart. You didn't think I'd keep it in one place, did you?"

Sakura felt her heart leap into her throat, both in panic and rage. Fucker.

Of course he wouldn't. Why build a freaking puppet army, make yourself into a living puppet, find some way to maintain your original heart but not split it into more than one piece? Silly girl.

Sakura thought quickly. She didn't have much chakra left. And she had no idea where his other piece—or maybe pieces?—of his heart was. It probably wasn't even with him.

She was _so_ screwed.

And then she realized he could have killed her already. _Should_ have, really. She'd looked away to see her heart when both Chiyo and Sasori had told her to. He had an opening then. Hell, he had an opening _now_ and she was still standing there, albeit shakily.

Sasori looked at her through hooded eyes. "You know, I never thought I had a soulmate. Never had a mark, of course. It was just one less thing holding me back, but now, with you here—" his eyes raked down her figure with renewed interest. "—after all this time, and you show up with fire in your eyes and a flaming heart."

He took slow steps towards her, stopped about an arm's length away from her chest. He quirked his head at her. Sakura fought back the shudder that wanted to wrack through her body at how inhuman that movement was, how his neck tilted just a little too much to the side, his eyes glassy and flat in his face. They were an odd amber color, and Sakura wondered idly if they'd been that color when he was alive.

Her eyes were drawn to his chest then, his doll chest cavity where it was only a gaping hole from where his heart—the one she'd crushed in her fist, the one that was leaking blue fluid down her wrist and fingers—had once resided.

Her whole body went still at the red leaking from the hole, seemingly out of thin air.

Sasori saw her freeze and looked down. His puppet body gave her no indication of what he felt, did not flinch or twitch, but she watched as he raised one hand towards it. Saw him pause as he touched the red, lifted it in front of his face to inspect it.

"Blood," Sasori muttered, more to himself than to her.

"Oh," she said, because of course this whole event was just getting weirder and weirder still.

"I don't bleed," Sasori said, sounding almost lost.

Sakura scoffed. "Yeah, I got that during our fight. If you did it would've made my life a _ton_ easier."

His head raised and he looked at her, and she froze at his look. "What have you done to me?" His voice was laced with quiet, simmering rage—something she hadn't heard from him before, even during their fight.

Sakura felt herself bristle at his tone and accusation. "As much as I would _love_ to be able to take credit for making you bleed," she hissed through clenched teeth, "I have nothing to do with this."

Then she paused. And looked down at her own heart.

She started chuckling.

Sasori looked at her like she'd lost her mind.

"Your grandmother was right," she said between inhaled breaths, just being so _done_ with that day and that fight and this stupid, infuriating puppet-boy who was her soulmate. "Kami _does_ have a sense of humor."

She pointed a finger at his gaping hole of a heart that was still bleeding red, waved the hand that was still clenching what remained of his fake heart. "It seems that soulmates _are_ our biggest weakness."

Sasori went very, very still as the meaning of her words hit him.

"You've already destroyed a part of my heart, doll-face," he finally said, breathing the words out like they cost him something. "As my soulmate, you already own the rest of it."

The unspoken question of if she was going to crush that part too hung in the air between them, charged and making the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.

"I should," she said. "I already did it once." She held up her blue stained hand again, like it was the proof they both needed.

She watched his throat bob, even though she was pretty sure he didn't need to swallow. But that train of thought would just lead her into wondering how life-like he'd made his puppet body, how much normalcy did he put the effort into keeping?

Sakura took a breath. "I don't want you."

He shrugged. "But I might need you."

It hit her like a physical blow.

She wondering, almost as an afterthought, if she stabbed herself through her heart, would he die too? That wasn't how it usually went with soulmates as she understood it, but usually one half of the soulmates didn't ruin their human body to turn it into something inhuman and unfeeling. And usually one half didn't try to kill the other half. Usually one half of the soulmate bond didn't twist their own heart into something unholy. Usually a person's heart didn't bleed blue liquid and the chest cavity didn't have a gaping hole in it. But, hey, apparently that day was just full of surprises.

She clenched her fists at her sides, further crushing his heart. "I owe you _nothing_."

"Oh, doll-face," he practically purred, looking at her through his lashes. "I don't want you owing me anything—I want you to offer me _everything_."

"So that's it, then?" she asked, trying to make her voice not shake with suppressed rage. She was already so tired from their fight, so ready to just collapse to the ground. "You suddenly want this when you know I hold your life in my hands?"

"I believe you hold my life in your heart, if we're getting particular about it." A smile curled one corner of his lips. "And you're mistaken, doll-face."

He took another step towards her, lifted a hand to her face, letting the tips of his fingers run over the surface of her skin, shifted the dust and blood on it. "I've waited a very long time for my soulmate," he murmured, and she was taken aback at how _real_ his skin felt, like normal, human skin. The only thing that gave it away was how ice cold it was with the lack of blood flow. With the lack of _any_ circulating flow, really. He had nothing in his body to warm it.

"You already peaked my interest, showing up to fight me with my grandmother, glaring at me with hate and fury in your eyes. I thought you were going to be an easy kill, nothing to think twice about. How pleasantly surprised I was when you desiccated the cave around us with those tiny, fragile looking fists." He licked his lips as he looked at her.

Sakura was tense, her muscles coiled and she felt ready to snap, but all her internal alarms were just _gone_ , her body and mind telling her she was safe with his puppet-boy who'd tried to kill her, morph her body into something unfeeling and dead inside, whose heart she'd just crushed in her ' _tiny, fragile fist_.' It terrified her that her body was betraying her now that it—her damn _soul_ —had recognized him as hers.

Sasori gently lifted the hand that was covered in blue liquid, prying her fingers open until the remains of his heart fell at her feet with a sickening squelch. He lifted her fingers to his mouth, traced his lips—surprisingly smooth, soft lips—along her bruised knuckles until his mouth was tainted blue.

"I've waited a long time for you," he said again. "You're a weakness to me. I've spent a great deal of time making myself immortal, unbreakable. And just after I'm sure I've succeeded, fate throws you at me." A rueful smirk twisted his blue lips. " _You_ , a loyal Konoha kunoichi with steel in your spine and hate in your gaze. A twist of fate and irony that your life is now my life, and as you've so beautifully proven, you're not above killing me."

Sasori leaned closer to her until she could feel his breath on her face. "And I find it impossible to even _want_ to kill you, even if killing you didn't ensure my own death. So no, doll-face, I find myself wanting to crack open your soul to see what lay inside, to see how fate decided it would merge with my own."

"You're a puppet," she hissed. "I'm not sure if you have a soul anymore."

He shrugged. "What do I care about the existence of my own soul when my very being aches for yours? What could possibly compare to that?"

"Loyalty," she said. "Commitment. I will not love you."

"Curious, how you say ' _will not'_ instead of _cannot_." He smirked down at her then, something lazy and vicious at once. "I want you, doll-face, and it has nothing to do with you holding my life in your tight little fists."

"Does that mean you'll hand me the rest of your heart then?" Sakura asked in her sweetest voice.

Sasori chuckled. "Asking for favors already, doll-face?" He licked his lips, smearing the blue residue there. He still had her hand in his, running his thumb over her bleeding and bruised knuckles. "Come with me."

She snarled. "You're insane."

"No? Ah, well, maybe it's too soon. But the thing about soulmates is that they're drawn to each other, whether they like it or not. Whatever is left of my soul has already claimed you as mine, but I want more than that. I want your _loyalty_ , your _commitment_ ," he voiced back her own words with a smirk. "I want you to claim me as I've claimed you. I want to be able to crawl beneath your skin and see all your secrets, all your desires, and take them as my own."

"You have no claim on me," Sakura said heatedly.

"I do," he retorted in an infuriating voice that demanded no argument. Sakura was positively _seething_. "I once thought about killing my soulmate if I even had one," he murmured idly. "Thought about impaling them." His eyes darted to her abdomen where his sword had done just that.

"But now—" he whispered in almost a reverent tone. "—now I find the mere thought repugnant and obscene."

"Why are you telling me this?" Sakura questioned, narrowing her eyes at him. "You're telling me that you're unable to kill me—that gives me quite a bit of power over you."

"A gift for a gift." Sasori encircled her wrist in his long fingers, pulled her to him in that last bit of distance until her chest was flush with his. "One day you'll repay the favor, doll-face."

She sneered and tilted her head back to look him in the eye, let him see the loathing at the mere idea of that, of her stubbornness and the unyielding iron in her gaze. "You're my soulmate," she said with obvious distaste. "That alone is more than I'm willing to share with _you_ —an Akatsuki member, a man who twisted his body into something else, a man who could kill his own grandmother."

She licked her lips and saw Sasori watch the movement with greedy, possessive eyes. "I don't trust you," she went on. "Not even a little bit. And you have no hope with me without it."

Something flared in his amber eyes at that, and Sakura watched as his previous dead eyes went just a little bit brighter. He licked his lips again. "A dare, doll-face?" A grin twisted his face and he lowered it to hers. "I accept."

Her breath hitched at his sudden closeness, but she refused to give an inch, to back down or be intimidated by this puppet-boy, soulmate or not.

Their breaths mingled, and something deep in her sang, _Oh, there you are._

She whispered, "Go to hell, puppet-boy," and kneed him in the crotch.

His eyes went wide and he immediately released her, hunching over in pain. Sakura didn't hesitate and ran out of that accursed cave, not looking back as Sasori cursed lowly and called out her name in something that almost resembled a plea.

She chalked it up to her disorientation and exhaustion.

* * *

Author's Note: You guys need to tell me if you want more of this, because right now I'm thinking this is just a oneshot but maybe I'll make it into a short series? I don't know. School is hard, guys. So. Much. Freaking. Work. You'd think after the last three years of college and this kind of workload I'd be used it to, but nada.

Thank you all for taking the time to read my works, and please **REVIEW** **!**

I'm still taking prompt requests, guys. I'm out of them right now if you want to PM me here. It can literally just be one sentence that I can incorporate into the prompt oneshot.


	2. Chapter 2

Standard disclaimer applies.

* * *

The problem with wanting was that you couldn't _think_ around it.

Everything was made up of desire and unobtainable things. She wanted all her friends to be safe. She wanted Sasuke to come back to the village. She wanted to punch Sasuke in the face. She wanted Naruto to become Hokage. She wanted Kakashi to see her for her strengths and not the twelve-year-old she used to be. She wanted Kakashi to stop hating himself. She wanted to erase her past. She wanted to be stronger, better at healing. She wanted to make Tsunade proud to call her her apprentice.

Sakura had never wanted a soulmate.

She got to see what became of soulmates when one half of the bond died. She got to go about her shifts at the hospital and see one half of the soulmate bond screaming and raging and being put down in the trauma area. She got to see people unravel at the foundation of their very being over the death of their other half, watch as their eyes stayed glued to the body of their counterpart, the only one who made them feel whole.

People shouldn't make other people whole, she'd always thought. But that was exactly what the soulmate bond did.

She wondered, of course, what it was like. She had a ruthlessly scientific curiosity about it all. She sometimes wanted a soulmate just to know what everyone always spoke about, wondered what it would be like to always be someone's first priority like that.

But actually meeting and wanting a soulmate? There were too many variables. Too many unknowns. They could be a civilian, another shinobi from an opposing village. They could be power hungry and ruthless and mad. She didn't trust her soul or fate to pick out someone for her.

She'd never actually imaged meeting her soulmate in a cave, smeared in blood from where her very soulmate had thrust a sword through her gut and tried to kill her, surrounded by the remains of puppets.

She'd never imagined her soulmate having already ruined whatever chance they could have had, having created his body into something inhuman. Her wounds would never show up as shadows on his body.

And now she'd forever have the dark hued stain over her heart from where she'd crushed a part of Sasori's heart in her fist.

The only good thing that seemed to come out of that day—out of that damn cave—was the knowledge he couldn't hurt her. The blood from the hole in his chest proved that. Sakura would bet anything that if she'd run that blood against her own, it would have been a match. Once their souls had locked onto each other, her wounds were his shadows and his wounds were her shadows.

The blood that spilled from his chest cavity had likely been fate mixing things up— _again_ —and making it so Sasori still carried proof of her hurt on his body. Of his sword through her abdomen. But a puppet body can't bruise, so it would bleed her blood instead, it seemed.

Fate was a tricky and fickle bitch.

She wondered if the stain over her heart would get darker after she crushed the rest of Sasori's heart. Maybe it would stain her all over, proof that she was tainted enough to kill her own soulmate.

Things had not gone over well when she'd shown it to Tsunade.

Sakura wouldn't lie to her Hokage, to her teacher, to her mentor. She couldn't betray her trust like that, and finding out your soulmate was a part of the organization attempting to destroy the village wasn't something to be ignored.

She had almost expected disdain. Maybe rage. Instead, she got Tsunade—bright eyed, beautifully alive, powerful and ruthless Tsunade—looking at her with pain and pity in her gaze once she'd explained everything that had happened.

It had been so much worse.

"Will you kill him?" Tsunade asked after she was finished.

"Yes."

Tsunade had hesitated. "I don't want you to," she finally said, slowly.

Sakura blinked and felt her heart somersault at the possibility of Tsunade wanting her to seduce Sasori through their soulmate bond—something that wouldn't be all that difficult, if she went by how he'd behaved around her—to get information about Akatsuki. It would be smart; she understood that. This was a good opportunity, _and_ _yet_ —

And yet she didn't want to get that close to the puppet master. She didn't want to have to meet him ever again unless it was on the battlefield, where she could break the earth with her fists and clench hearts until they burst.

Tsunade took a breath. "I won't order you to take the life of your soulmate," she said. "I will not fault you for letting him live. Kami knows that's not something that could ever be asked of anyone, shinobi or not."

Sakura blinked, body tense. That was . . . a surprising look on things.

And then she remembered how Tsunade's soulmate died.

She opened her mouth, but Tsunade cut her off. "If you wish to tell the others of this, you may. But _only_ your teammates. We don't need this getting around the village."

Of course not. That would be a disaster.

What did it say about her, Sakura wondered, that her soul picked such a person as Sasori?

"Hokage-sama," Sakura began, hesitantly. "Are you telling me not to kill him?"

"What I am saying is that I will not _order_ you to do anything about him. What you do should you meet him again—and I can ensure you that you will—is up to you. Just . . . keep me updated."

She bowed and was dismissed and tried not think about how sure Tsunade was she'd see her soulmate again.

* * *

Naruto had taken to the news as he did all things—with his mouth and baffled enragement.

"But it's not _fair_ ," he snarled. Not _at_ her, but for her, almost.

"We don't get the luxury of picking our soulmates," Kakashi drawled, leaning against a tree in the training field. He had only put his little orange book down when she'd uttered the words _soulmate_ and _Akatsuki_ , but it had gone right up after that, shielding his face.

"I _know_ that," Naruto snapped, whirling to face him. "But it's . . . it's _Sakura-chan_. Her soulmate's a _monster_."

She hadn't been able to prevent the flinch at that.

Naruto noticed and winced. "I didn't mean it like that," he murmured, eyes soft and darting to his feet. "I just don't understand how it's possible."

Sakura, quite frankly, didn't either.

* * *

It could have been worse, she supposed.

Her new moto became: _At least it wasn't Sasuke._

She knew that it was never him, had known since she was twelve and never saw her own hurts reflected back at her from his skin. It was only after he left that she thanked Kami it hadn't been him.

Sometimes it felt like her heart hurt. _Physically_ hurt. She'd even run a few check-ups on it just to be sure something wasn't wrong. Sometimes the pain ghosted along her edges, rough and rubbing against her heart. It was only after a month of this she decided it was another thing fate threw at her for having such a monster of a soulmate. Maybe a physical shadow of the pain of crushing his heat. Maybe a shadow of the pain to come when she crushed the rest of it. The soulmate bond could so unpredictable at times.

She threw herself into work and duties and training like nothing else. She made herself learn even more types of poisons and treatments and made sure to know as much as she could that when— _if, when, if, when_ —she saw her soulmate again, she'd be more than ready to kill him.

Tsunade noticed but said nothing. She gave her another mission, this one on her own to burn off some steam outside of the village and breakable buildings.

It should have been simple enough. Gather research on some new herbs and poisons in the middle of freaking nowhere, somewhere between enemy lines but before certain death had she gone any further. Her knowledge on poison had become well known to Tsunade, had become something invaluable. They all knew war was coming. Healers and masters in different areas and skills could change the tied in a war.

The moment Tsunade handed her the scroll in her office with the details of her mission inside, she knew that this was just busy work to get her out into an environment Sasori could find her in. She knew when she locked eyes with Tsunade—who had swallowed so thickly that Sakura could see the movement in her throat—and when Tsunade fisted her hands on her desk that this was her both giving Sakura permission and testing her.

Because she was too much of a risk. Sakura understood that, the logic behind it. Tsunade was the Hokage; she had to make difficult choices. And when her apprentice found out her soulmate was part of a terrorist organization who'd already had part of his heart crushed, well, it tended to make one worry.

She would kill Sasori when the time came. Sakura thought that Tsunade knew that, this this was why she was sending Sakura out into the wild to see if she would kill Sasori or just . . . let him go. And Tsunade was giving her permission to do either, but as the Hokage she needed to know which Sakura would pick when it mattered most.

But she still covered her tracks. Still made her journey invisible, never straying too far into little towns or inns. She traveled for two weeks, alone, before she even got to the area that was said to grow some inane, ridiculously rare and deadly poisonous flower should it ever be ingested.

It was deep purple with soft looking petals. Long stemmed and only found in the crawl space between a waterfall and the rock behind it. Only ever found in that one singular spot on only the sunniest of days for only so many hours of the day, receding into the moist cracks in the rock at all other times. It was, once found, simply beautiful.

But that was the thing: _once it was found_. It took Sakura another week just to figure out it actually existed at all, going back and forth between the waterfall with the blue-green water and her makeshift camp at all hours of the day and night, recording detailed notes in her journal, drawing illustrations of the environment around her. She was nothing if not meticulous.

When she finally did find it, Sakura took even more time in figuring out how to obtain it. She couldn't just reach out and pluck it, obviously. And there were only a handful of the flower available, so if she accidently killed them this mission was pointless.

So she wasted time thinking and planning and drawing pages and pages of illustrations of the violet plant, of the long petals that opened up from the center, the black miniscule veins running through it, the moss green of the body of it until it fractured out into the rock behind it. Of how the water from the waterfall caught onto it, how the dew drops stuck to it and gleamed in the afternoon sunlight that danced across the water.

She'd been on that mission for exactly three and a half weeks when Sasori finally found her.

She took great pride in that it had taken him that long.

She was hanging upside down behind the waterfall, getting a new angle on the poisonous flower. It irritated her how she knew the exact moment he stepped into the clearing, how it wasn't because she felt his chakra signature or because she heard him, but because something inside her fucking _sang_ with recognition, like it remembered something important or was finally coming home.

She ignored him and finished her drawing, shading in the petals with the shadows from the late afternoon sunlight. The flower was going to recede into the rock surface anytime now and Sakura almost envied it.

She could tell Sasori was not a fan of this. She could hear his shuffling feet and long held sighs. There might have even been a muttering of _brat_ under his breath that Sakura chose to ignore. (For now, at least.)

Once she watched as the flower hid itself away from the fading light, only then did she huff out a breath and jumped down from behind the waterfall, not caring one bit about her drenched clothes. It was hot out, okay? She felt no shame for this.

She landed a good distance away from Sasori, not taking her eyes off him for a moment, studiously ignoring how her body _burned_ to get closer, to touch, to feel.

Shinobi did not feel, did not _want_.

Sakura breathed deep and waited. She'd be damned before she spoke first.

Sasori tilted his head at her. "What, no death threats, doll-face? I was hoping for more."

"Hate to break it to you," Sakura said calmly, oh-so calmly, "but my life does not revolve around thinking up long monologues about how I'm going to kill you." A well placed shot at him that had her biting back a grin at how his eyes narrowed. "I have better things to think about."

Something in his eyes flashed. Curious, she thought, how she'd thought they were so cold back in the cave. "Things such as art, I see." He nodded towards her closed notebook that contained all her pages of drawings. "I can't tell you how glad I am to know my soulmate is artistic."

"Artistic is pushing it," Sakura grumbled.

"Still." He shrugged halfheartedly. She was coming to see that everything he did had an air of lazy, unrushed haze to it. "At least you're not molding things that explode."

One of her eyebrows rose. "I assume you're referring to your partner?"

"Partner might be pushing it," he said. "Annoying brat is more accurate."

She clicked her tongue and thought of Naruto then.

Naruto, who the Akastuki were after. Naruto, who would end up dead, his dream of becoming Hokage down the drain if they had their way. A group that her soulmate was a part of.

Naruto was her best friend, sans Ino. Naruto was her rock. Naruto was everything this man in front of her was not.

What was a soulmate compared to that kind of friendship and love?

Sakura could feel her shoulders and back tense. Had to keep herself from grinding her teeth. "You impaled me with a sword."

He blinked at her, slowly, like he had to remember. "I did."

"If I die, you die."

"Are we naming true things now? If so, your hair is the most unusual pink color I've ever seen and it makes my fingers itch to run my hands through it. And your eyes get this bright gleam in them whenever you're angry, turning just a shade darker. It's the most glorious thing I've ever seen, sans you destroying my undefeated puppet army with those tiny fists of yours."

She swallowed thickly. "What do you want from me, Sasori?"

She saw his breath hitch, saw him lean forward just an inch before he caught himself at the first time she'd ever called him by his name. He had to physically collect himself before he spoke again, and Sakura felt a wicked thrill at seeing how she could throw him off so simply from doing something as inane as saying his name.

"What I want, _Sakura_ ," he purred, "is your curves under my hands and your hair spread out over red sheets."

She went very, very still.

"But we'll start with . . . trust," he said. "As you so elegantly informed me, doll-face, we both lack it in each other."

"And . . . so what?" she asked. "You impaled me with a sword, repeatedly made threats about turning me into a puppet, poisoned me, and tried to kill me. I, in turn, destroyed your puppet army and crushed your heart in my hand even after I knew we were soulmates." She nearly spat the word.

"Come with me, doll," he whispered, just loud enough for her to hear him over the chirping cicadas and rush of the waterfall. "Come with me and see I'm no longer a threat to you."

She sneered. "Whatever happened to ' _this is unfortunate'_?" she threw his first words spoken to her after they both understood they were soulmates back at him. "Now all of a sudden you want me to defect from my village and . . . what? Join the Akatsuki?"

He smiled indulgently at her. She had to physically stop herself from punching it right off his face.

She was pretty sure a soulmate wasn't supposed to make her feel so violent.

"I care very little if you join Akatsuki," he said. "Can't say I care much for it myself."

"What?"

"Well, it's not like I went out looking to join them," he said and waved an idle hand in the air. "They're not exactly the type of people you walk up to and ask to join the club. I won't leave them now," he added at her look. One side of his mouth quirked up. "Believe it or not, I can be loyal too. As for you defecting . . ."

"I won't," she said, like it was a promise, like it was a threat. She had learned some time ago there was nothing more precious than loyalty and she stood by hers more than anything else.

He sighed. "Unsurprising, I suppose."

"I want to kill you," she said bluntly. It was simply a fact.

Sasori studied her for a moment too long. His gaze unnerved her, not just because she knew what he was capable of or because he was apparently her soul's match, but because at times he could look so empty and hollow while at other times it was like he flicked a switch and showed _everything_.

"I believe you," he said.

"You won't win this war."

"Maybe, maybe not," he murmured. "But at least it'll be interesting." Then, quite suddenly, he said gruffly, "I won't let you die. Not after waiting so long for my soulmate."

She licked her lips. "I thought you'd said you'd thought about impaling your soulmate."

"Hmm. Tried it, didn't particularly care for it," he parried right back. "I'm going with plan B now."

"Oh?" she said, clenching her notebook too tightly. "Care to share?"

He smirked. "Why, I'm going to seduce you of course."

Sakura laughed, loud enough that it startled the exotic birds around them. " _You_ , a puppet-boy, seduce? You're cute, but I'm not nearly that stupid."

He took a sudden step towards her and she tensed. "Puppet-boy?" he chuckled. "I think you'll find I put a bit more effort into this body than you'd think, doll-face. I look forward to showing you that one day."

"Arrogant," she sneered.

He licked his lips and pulled back his lips enough for her to get a flash of perfect white teeth. "Oh, you have no idea, doll-face. My partner has called me worse."

Her eyes lowed as she, too, pulled back her lips enough to bare her teeth at him in something that could never be called a smile. "And what will you do when your partner tries to kill me for being a loyal shinobi of the Hidden Leaf, I wonder?"

Sasori looked out at her through lowered lids. "Deidara won't try to harm you," he said, chuckling. "I suspect he'll try to flirt with you before he ever tries to kill you. And as I've so recently discovered," he purred, "my soulmate turned out to not only be a prodigy, but the apprentice of the Hokage herself. I suspect you'd be able to hold your own against him. How lucky I am fate has blessed me with a competent soulmate."

Her eyes drifted to his chest, covered now by his tell-tale Akatsuki robes. "Speaking of my competence, how's the heart?"

"Hidden away. Or shall I take my shirt off and show you?"

She blinked very, very slowly at him, showing her derision.

He chuckled.

It was, she decided, time for her to leave. "Since you're not going to try to kill me and I don't particularly see how I can kill you without your heart nearby, I think we're done here," she said, already moving backwards towards her camp.

His gaze went sharp, calculating. "You know we'll have to see each other again soon," he said, eyeing her movements in a predatory manner. But Sakura refused to be prey. "The soulmate bond will demand it."

She knew that. Knew that was why two shinobi soulmates were always sent out on missions together. They tended to be stronger together too.

"I wonder how you'll deal with my death," she said idly over her shoulder as she walked away from him. "You've made yourself immortal by dehumanizing yourself. I will die, one way or another." And even though it was morbid as all hell, she got a thrill knowing she'd be the cause of his death even if she never did manage to find the rest of his heart.

A soulmate did not survive long after their counterpart died.

"We'll see about that," he drawled. And Sakura shuddered at his soft, unyielding tone, and for the first time since her soul had claimed him as hers, she began to see why fate had picked him as her soulmate.

And it scared the hell out of her.

* * *

Author's Note: This is what happens when I get so many nice reviews. I write. A lot. I'm enjoying this fic more than I was expecting, I admit.

Also, I just want to clarify that this pretty much completely deviates from canon. Things before Sakura and Sasori met in canon may not have happened. Don't think too much about it. It's called fanfiction for a reason.

Please tell me what y'all's theories are for what happens next, maybe what the end game will be. I always find it interesting where readers think a story is going after only a little bit of reading it.

Thank you all for reading! Please **REVIEW**!


	3. Chapter 3

Standard disclaimer applies.

* * *

Sakura woke up the next morning before the sun was fully risen. She'd slept tense and anxious and she fully blamed a tiresome redheaded puppeteer.

Seriously, _puppets_? Why couldn't her soulmate just be like a normal shinobi and gut people? Instead he had to have a fetish for dolls.

She laid there in her little makeshift tent for a while longer, thinking and stressing and knowing that damn purple flower wouldn't emerge for another few hours. She had time to kill, which wasn't something she was used to.

Before Sasori had found her, she'd been spending her off time between sketching the area around the site of the flower and training. Sometimes meditating. Oftentimes colorfully cursing Kami for all this crap.

She wondered if this was punishment for stupidly liking Sasuke when she was younger. She wasn't his soulmate, had figured that out pretty quickly, but odds for shinobi finding their soulmate before their untimely death wasn't all that great and they tended to live in the moment. Ending up with someone who wasn't your soulmate wasn't unheard of, but it did make things rather awkward if one person stumbled upon their soulmate while in a relationship with another person.

When she started to smell food and wood burning, she closed her eyes and internally groaned. The fact that all her trustworthy internal alarms sharpened over years of training and missions was apparently moot when it came to her soulmate made her feel like her soul had betrayed her.

Leaving her tent, Sakura looked on disinterestedly as her soulmate stirred something on top of the fire. There was something mental about seeing the Akatsuki member doing something so . . . mundane.

What really got her, though, was how in the hand unoccupied by stirring the pot was her sketching notebook. Sasori looked at it with a critical eye, and Sakura refused to feel self-conscious.

"You don't leave any detail out, do you?" Sasori drawled, still not looking at her.

"Why are you still here?"

"You're not a morning person, are you?"

She wasn't. But that didn't mean he wasn't also a part of her sour mood.

She glared at him.

Sasori sighed, looking rather put out. "You're too skinny and I can tell you've been living off ration bars and what appears to be your own brand of vitamin pills." He narrowed his eyes at her pack that was lying by the fire like it personally offended him. She was coming to realize that everything _did_ seem to personally offend him, inanimate or not.

"So I'm feeding you," he finished.

"I don't need you to take care of me," Sakura said, wondering how she found herself in these situations. She mentally cursed some more at Kami.

He shrugged. "I'm your soulmate and have this innate desire to take care of you. To be perfectly blunt I'd like to wrap you in a gilded cage full of silks and fur to keep you safe."

Her skin prickled. "If you tried I would experiment on how long live vivisection took with your freaky half human, half puppet body."

He looked at her almost fondly. "So grim, doll-face. But I already assumed that so unfortunately that's out. What if I made you into a puppet like me?" He almost sounded hopeful.

"I think we've already been over this," she drawled. She was almost insulted.

"You'd have free will," Sasori said, looking at her with his amber eyes.

She wondered if he ever slept. Did puppets need to sleep? Because he didn't have a hint of shadow under his eyes and Sakura was supremely jealous. What was it with pretty boys in her life?

Blinking very slowly, Sakura shook her head. She gave him the look she usually reserved for Naruto when he tried to convince her to have a ramen eating contest with him.

"We'll come back to it," he said.

She sighed.

When he handed her a rather large portion of the weird type of porridge looking meal, she deftly ran her standard chakra sensory check over it, looking for poisons. She was pretty sure he wouldn't put drugs in her food since he hadn't tried to kill her again, but there was still that whole trust issue that wasn't going away anytime soon.

She cautiously lifted the spoon to her mouth, acutely aware of Sasori staring at her, not eating. Did humanoid puppets eat?

And it was . . . good. Surprisingly. For a puppet-boy, he sure knew how to cook.

When she put the bowl down, mostly finished, Sasori's eyes gleamed and he lifted his stirring spoon. "More?" he asked hopefully.

"I'm good. Thanks," she said, almost begrudgingly. But damn him for being right—she'd been living off protein bars for a while.

The gleam in his eyes dimmed. Maybe that was just from whatever he must have made his eyeballs from. Glass, maybe? "You're too skinny," he said glumly. "And I know you liked it. I could practically feel your stomach settle with happiness."

"I think we're going to have to talk about boundaries," she deadpanned.

" _Boundaries!_ " Sasori scoffed, again like the word offended him. "We're _soulmates_ —boundaries don't exist between us."

"We're probably going to have that talk sooner rather than later then."

He harrumphed.

"Speaking of boundaries and your lack of them," Sakura said, folding her hands across her lap. "Where's that partner of yours? Should I expect him to drop in sometime soon and blow everything up?"

He frowned at her and shrugged.

"Oookay then," she drawled, narrowing her eyes at him. "Are you pouting?"

He so was. "Why do you want to know about that brat?"

She blinked, trying to understand the mechanics of a puppet pouting at her. It was almost as bad as when Naruto did it. "Because I'd rather not be taken by surprise. And if he is, I think I should be getting back to the village."

If she saw Deidara, another Akatsuki member, she wasn't quite sure what she was supposed to do. As a Konoha shinobi, she was supposed to isolate and kill any threat to the village, and Deidara definitely was. Tsunade had given her permission not to kill Sasori, but she didn't really think that extended to his partner as well. Better to just avoid the situation altogether.

Sasori's eyes darkened. "I told you the brat wouldn't hurt you."

She rolled her eyes. "I don't think it would be very wise to be around two Akatsuki members."

He looked affronted. "I'm your _soulmate_."

"I noticed."

He pouted some more, and Sakura was pretty sure her eye was twitching. She had an insane desire to run her hands through his red hair. It just looked so _soft_ , like cat's fur.

Sakura took a deep breath. She definitely needed to put space between them. "You know what, I think I should just head back to the village anyways."

Sasori blinked at her, slowly. "Why?"

"Because I'm a shinobi."

He waved an idle hand in the air, like it was all pointless circumstance.

She huffed. " _Because_ I'd really rather not be taken prisoner by your organization to lure Naruto out in all his righteous glory."

He looked mildly alarmed. You know, for a puppet. "What about your flower?"

Running her hands through her tussled hair, Sakura again wondered when this conversation went so far downhill. "I'll pluck the damn thing. There are some preservation techniques I know of that should do the trick." She just had to wait until the stupid thing appeared out of the rock first.

Sasori just looked at her for a moment. "What's your plan?" he finally asked.

"What?"

"For the war. For your life. For _us_ ," he said. "You don't strike me as the type not to plan out everything."

She rubbed at the spot between her eyes where she knew it was wrinkled with strain and worry. "I don't know."

He snorted.

She shrugged. "I mean it. I don't know how this will all turn out. You're right that I have plans—many, many plans." She was no Shikamaru, but she wasn't stupid about these kinds of things. Sitting in on pre-war meetings (though they were never called anything even close to that for political reasons and such) had taught her a thing or two.

"What I know is that the only way the Akatsuki will ever get Naruto or the nine-tailed beast is if they cut through all of us—me, our comrades, our mentors. The other jinchuuriki were only captured because their vessels were hated, loners, pariahs. Naruto is . . ."

What was Naruto? Kind, loving, _good_. Things she no longer took for granted. Naruto was going to be their savior. Naruto was going to survive even if she had to sacrifice the rest of the world to do so.

Sasori watched her with thinly veiled disgust. "You love him," he spat.

"Yes," she said without hesitation. "I'll love him until my death. I love Kakashi-sensei. I love Tsunade-sama. I love my village."

His lips curled back. "Would you like to hear about what your precious village has done to other villages? How your precious village elders gave an order to a young boy to choose between his village and family? And for what? All in the name of The Greater Good?"

Sakura gave him a sad smile. "You think I'm blind to the hatred and evil of my village, but I'm not. I watched as Naruto was pushed to the side for reasons beyond his knowledge—reasons that meant nothing in the end. I've been through the chunin exam and the Forest of Death. I know more than you give me credit for. Konoha is not exempt from cruelty and evil."

"Then _why?_ " he nearly whined.

Sakura remembered what Chiyo had told her about Sasori. About his parents and their deaths. About his hatred for Suna.

"When you're given two evils to choose from, you pick the lesser of them." She grinned ruefully. "Or as the best you can. I don't even really see the Akatsuki as evil," she said, and watched in amusement as Sasori's eyes sparked with something. "Who am I to determine who's right or wrong in their beliefs? I'm just making the choices I believe in or, forgoing that, the choices I can live with. I don't believe in the Akatsuki's beliefs, and I don't particularly believe you do either."

His amber eyes narrowed at her and she laughed. "Oh, don't look at me like that. You said it yourself: you're loyal. But loyalty and belief don't always go hand-in-hand."

"And for you?" he asked. Sakura tilted her head. "Do they go hand-in-hand for you?"

She thought about it. "Hmm. Sometimes. Not always, but I can live with the choices I've made, which I suppose is good enough." She eyed him, breathed in the fresh morning air and something that was a mixture between sawdust and musk. "Can you live with your choices, puppet-boy?"

"What do you plan on doing after you've killed me?" Sasori asked, and it didn't escape Sakura's notice that he was completely ignoring her question, but she hadn't expected much else. "Soulmates don't typically live long after the other dies. Is my death really worth your own?"

"It's worth the protection to my village and friends. To Naruto."

The slicing and breaking of the thick log next to the fire took her by surprise. Sasori's eyes blazed and Sakura watched as small splintering pieces of log fell around them. She'd forgotten just how powerful her soulmate could be.

If he had needed to breathe Sakura was sure his chest would have been heaving with shaky breaths. Instead, his red, soft looking hair bobbed with his head as it fell to his chest and he stood there, a few feet from Sakura, standing too still.

She was walking towards him before she could catch herself. And then her hands were running through his hair and her face was so close she could smell it— _him_.

She was right—his hair was damn soft. Thick and fine as it ran through her fingers.

"You're going to be more trouble than you're worth, aren't you?" she murmured to his head. She lightly tugged a piece of his hair.

"I'm a puppet-boy, as you so elegantly put it, doll-face," he muttered into his chest. It was almost childlike, and something in her heart fractured. Was this what having a soulmate meant? To constantly feel like there was an extension of yourself in another person? "I'm not worth a whole lot to you as a soulmate as it is."

Her fingers didn't stop running through his hair, but at his words her nails scrapped gently against his scalp. Sasori released something that sounded a mix between a purr and a growl and her stomach reacted violently to it. "What do you mean?" she asked. But she already knew.

"I'm not human," he said, still making no move to pull away from Sakura's ministrations. "I have human parts. I saved enough of my original body to matter. But I'll never have any blood pumping in my body. I'll never have any organs or . . ."

 _Or a heart._

Sakura stayed silent as she thought through her words carefully. She wondered how much of this was him toying with her, how much was truth mixed in with lies. "Some soulmates can survive after the other dies," she finally said. She licked her lips. "Sometimes the other half can find something else to live for, to put their minds and bodies to. It's not a pleasant existence."

She thought of Kakashi. Of Tsunade. Of the stories of their soulmates they would never whisper to anyone but the darkness late at night. Asking about their dead soulmate was like running a kunai through their heart and twisting. The ache never left. It wasn't something you got over; it was something you just learned to live with as you counted down the seconds until you died as well.

Most of the time, soulmates who'd lost their other half committed suicide. For shinobi, they asked for suicide missions. Most of the time they were given just that. A hurt and tired shinobi wasn't worth a whole lot.

"And that's what you're settling for?" Sasori asked, sounding like he was working himself up to anger on her behalf, even though he was the one who would die. "A hateful existence?"

"Isn't that what you set yourself up for when you turned your body into something inhuman?"

He twisted out of her grasp faster than she'd expected, and was left with her hands in the air, hovering over the space his head had once been as he gazed at her a few feet away in a mix between pain and fury.

"You think I care about any of that?" he sneered at her. "I'm a monster, doll-face. If you think you're going to redeem me—"

Sakura snorted. "Don't be stupid. I have no intention of trying to redeem you or save you or any of that nonsense."

He blinked at her, mouth parted. He almost looked offended. "So even my own soulmate thinks I'm unredeemable—"

She narrowed her eyes. "People don't redeem other people. That's not my job." Sasuke had taught her that. "You're not looking for something like redemption. You like what you are."

"I'm a murderer," he said lowly. "I've committed more atrocities than you can comprehend. Unforgivable things."

"It's truly adorable how you think any of this matters to me," Sakura drawled. "I first killed when I was twelve. I once let a whole town die of a disease I could have easily cured because it was ordered of me. I have chosen my orders to my village over saving the lives of children due to circumstance. I'm no innocent and I wouldn't want to be. Innocence doesn't win a war." She flicked invisible lint from her shirt. "If this is your idea of seduction, it sucks."

"You told me—" he breathed, clenching and unclenching his fists. "You told me that you could never love me, that you could never accept someone who's apart of Akatsuki and who could kill family."

She rolled her eyes skyward. "Kami," she breathed, tired with this conversation. "This isn't a damn love confession. And you aren't _listening_ —"

"And it begins already," Sasori muttered.

"—to me. I'm trying to tell you that the reason I'm saying no to this soulmate bond, to _you_ , is because I'm trying to make the choices I can live with, and canoodling with the man who's part of the terrorist organization hellbent on killing my best friend and destroying everything I love is not something I can live with. We're all someone's monster, Sasori, and the fact that you're more than a few someone's monster doesn't matter all that much to me."

Sasori tilted his head at her and watched her with a predator's gaze, taking in her words thoughtfully.

Then he lowered his lashes and a smirk slowly spread across his face. "I think, doll-face," he purred, "that you're a soulmate worth waiting for."

Sakura ground her teeth together and clenched her fists. This infuriating, insufferable, soulmate _asshole_ —

"And I'll make a note about the seduction method," he went on, paying no mind to Sakura's increasingly irritated mood. He grinned slyly at her. "I promise that I'll be very, _very_ dedicated to that here on out."

She glared at him for a moment before letting her face go blank . . . right before she leaned over and tossed another one of the gigantic logs at his stupid, insufferable face.

* * *

Author's Note: I've gotten a few questions on if this story is going to become M rated, and the answer will always be no. I don't write anything M rated, so no smut. I like writing romance stories, but not pure smut. (And honestly I think I'd suck at it if I even tried.)

This may be a slow going story. I don't think it's going to be a particularly long story, probably about the same length as _Of Blood and Cherry Blossoms_. I'm super busy right now with school and a few weeks ago my grandmother passed away, so there's that to deal with.

I appreciate all the reviews and favorites I'm getting for this story. Really. Sometimes I'm just having such a crappy time and I read a little review and it brightens my day, and that's nothing to scoff at.

Please **REVIEW** and tell me what you guys want to see happen/what you think will happen!

(I may come back and edit this at a later date since I'm currently writing this sleep deprived.)


	4. Chapter 4

Standard disclaimer applies.

* * *

Sakura had been forced to keep secrets before. It wasn't something she wasn't accustomed to, having to lie perfectly to friends and those she cared for because it was ordered of her. And most of the time, she was okay with it.

She'd lie for Tsunade. She'd lie for Naruto, for Kakashi, for Ino. She'd kill for all of them— _had_ killed for all of them, even at times they would never know about. The thing about courage was that sometimes courage was about being quiet. About listening to other shinobi in the hospital tell you of how you just didn't _understand_ what they'd just done, the atrocities they'd committed in the name of the village. How staying in the white walls of the hospital protected her, how being the Hokage's apprentice saved her from suicide missions and doing things she would hate herself for.

So she'd smile and take it. It didn't matter that she'd undergone training with Tsunade that nearly broke her. It didn't matter that she could never speak about the times she'd had to play Kami and decide who lived and who died, who was more important to save in the hospital when a whole team of Anbu came in in critical condition. It didn't matter that she'd set diseases on small towns only to come in and cure it at the most opportune time for the Leaf Village to gain favor.

She wasn't like Naruto who wanted appreciation, who wanted everyone in the shinobi world to see him as useful, as important and powerful. Hers was a quiet kind of courage.

Keeping silent about her soulmate when she got back to the village wasn't as difficult as it should have been. She smiled and chatted with Ino over lunch like it was nothing. She healed Naruto and Kakashi after they trained.

She turned in the violet flower to Tsunade. The Hokage had looked at it for a bare minute before handing her a sealed scroll and dismissing Sakura, looking at her with relief. Sakura tried very hard not to think about what that meant.

And she wasn't all that surprised when she got back to her tiny apartment that she never really used to find a tiny replica of the violet flower sitting on her kitchen counter, carved out of wood and painted to perfection. When she saw it, Sakura just sighed, ran a chakra check over it for traps as well as the rest of her apartment for good measure, and moved it to sit on top of a bookcase in the living room.

She woke up the day after she returned from her mission before the sun was fully risen. She'd been given the mandatory day off after a mission (even though it was a useless mission), and so she made herself tea and sat down to do some reports.

She'd finished four reports, read over a new chapter in a book about poisons, and finished her pot of tea by the time morning for the rest of the Leaf Village came around. And she was brushing through her hair when one of her traps alerted her to a new chakra signature in her apartment.

Slamming her wooden hairbrush onto the sink so hard a crack appeared on the handle, Sakura tilted her head back and groaned.

When she walked out of her bathroom and into the living room, she was greeted by the sight of her soulmate stuck in a cacophony of ropes and wires tied around every part of his body, dangling from the ceiling by her window. The window that hadn't been open when she'd gone into the bathroom.

Sasori's red hair was in disarray and hanging in front of his amber eyes, which glared out at her. She just stared back, attempting to untangle her emotions. She wasn't quite sure if she was pissed or amused.

"Tea?" she finally offered.

His eyes narrowed and darted down to her empty cup sitting next to her pile of paperwork and books.

"I'm making a new pot anyways," she said, and walked towards the kitchen to do just that.

She spent the next ten minutes taking her sweet time in the kitchen, letting the water simmer and boil. She even made herself some toast and ate it while she waited, listening in amusement as her soulmate tried (and failed) to cut himself down from the ceiling. He really should have expected her to have multitudes of traps around her apartment. She'd learned from past mistakes, and using both Naruto and Kakashi as her personal Guinee pigs had its advantages. They should know better than to land on her windowsill and break into her house unannounced, but it did help her see where her traps were lacking when they managed to cut themselves out of them.

When she finally walked back with two steaming cups of tea in hand, Sasori was upside down with one foot caught in one of the wires hanging down, pointing straight up in the air. His glare could have boiled the tea.

She set his cup down on the coffee table. "Do you take sugar in your tea?"

He paused, considering. "Is that green tea?"

"Yes."

"Then no."

She nodded and sat down on the couch. She wondered if his pride was going to let him ask for her to let him down.

He sneered at her. "Aren't you going to cut me down?"

She licked her lips, now stinging from the scalding tea. "Oh, do you need help? I thought you were a part of the most dangerous terrorist organization to date."

"Oh, for the love of—"

She rolled her eyes and released the traps with a few quick hand signs. He fell in a heap, only _just_ managing to land on his hands and feet. Sakura was mildly impressed in his cat-like reflexes.

He blinked at her, slowly, and Sakura wondered if he was going to attack her. But he just rose to his feet and sat down on the couch next to her. Instead of going for his own untouched cup of tea on the table, he plucked her own right out of her hands before she could react and took a long sip from the exact spot her own lips had touched. His eyes never left hers.

She narrowed her eyes at him when he tried to hand it back to her with a smirk, and picked up his own untouched tea and took a sip of that instead.

Bastard.

"How old are you?" Sasori asked, seemingly out of nowhere.

She raised an eyebrow. "Twenty-one. You?"

His eyes gleamed. "Older."

She snorted. "Great, my soulmate's an old man."

"I prefer to think of it as having more life experience."

"Uh-huh. What are you doing here?"

"I told you the soulmate bond would require us to be together more often," he drawled. "I had you all to myself for more than three weeks. The bond won't be so lax in letting us be apart from now on."

"I haven't felt anything," she said.

"Liar."

But she wasn't. Sure, she knew the bond was there, had felt its presence pulling at her the moment she left her camp and Sasori behind. But it wasn't so bad that she couldn't push it to the back of her mind and pretend nothing was amiss.

She shrugged. Then eyed him as she drank her tea. "How much of you is human?" she asked after a moment of studying him.

She'd seen Kankuro's puppets before. She would have known they were puppets even without anyone telling her, but she never had suspected Sasori was a puppet when she first saw him in the cave.

He smirked at her. "Would you like to see for yourself?" And before she could scoff or tell him off, he was standing and shrugging out of his shirt, having left the Akatsuki robe behind. Most likely to better sneak into the village without attracting attention.

Sakura choked at the first reveal of smooth, pale skin. Unblemished and perfect, not a bruise or scrape in sight. She was painfully reminded of the red skin around her heart and the long, jagged scar along her abdomen. Her many smaller scars.

If it wasn't for the hole in his chest, Sakura could have almost made herself believe her soulmate was human.

Something must have shown on her face, because Sasori looked at her with a critical eye, almost apprehensive. A sharp contrast to his smugness when he first took off his shirt. He moved his arms left and right, turned slightly so she could see his back and what appeared to be muscle and bone move underneath skin.

She swallowed and fisted her hands. "What's it made from?" she asked.

Sasori tilted his head. "Me."

Her brow furrowed in confusion.

"It's my original body," Sasori explained. "My muscle, my tissue and skin."

"But not your heart," Sakura whispered, her own heart hammering in her chest.

"No, not my heart."

"How?"

"Lots of experiments beforehand. I was . . . obsessed with immortality after my parents died," he said, and Sakura was taken aback at this freely given information. Chiyo had told her about him, but this was something so much rawer.

"I wanted to find a way to bring them back, at first. I made puppets that looked just like them, and that got me thinking about if it would be possible to reconstruct a person after they died. To cheat death, if you will," he said. "But my parents' bodies were long gone. Instead I starting thinking about myself."

"You feared death," Sakura murmured.

Sasori paused, considering. "No," he slowly said. "I don't think so. I just wanted more time. To experiment, to gather knowledge."

Sakura could understand that. She remembered how she'd devoured every piece of information Tsunade had given her, how she'd been a model student in the academy. There was a kind of rush in discovering something new.

"Knowledge is power," she said.

He nodded sharply. "I found a way to use my own body and just made adjustments. Chakra infused muscle and bone, that kind of thing."

Sakura thought about the stories she'd heard about Kimimaro. How he could make bone grow out of his skin. "And your heart?"

"The only true way to be immortal is to hide your heart. I just made it believe that it was still beating inside my body when I separated it and hid it."

She shook her head. "I don't understand."

"Think of the chakra strings I use on my puppets, doll-face," Sasori explained. He ran one hand down his abdomen, and Sakura watched the motion with greedy eyes. "It's like I have chakra strings attached from my heart to my body so that they believe it's still one whole thing."

"You're the puppeteer to your own puppet body," Sakura realized.

"Exactly."

"So the rest of you is . . . real? Human?"

He smirked at her and lifted his hand to the waistband of his pants.

She cursed under her breath and threw his shirt at his face.

* * *

"I'm going to Suna."

Sasori cracked open his eyes below her, having at some point weaseled away the distance between them until she could comfortably have a book in one hand and still run her fingers through his red hair with her other hand, his head resting on her lap. His eyes had been closed and she found herself rubbing the spot over her heart when she looked down at him. He was like a cat, she thought. Moving into her space simply because he wanted attention and a lap to lie on. A slow and languid creature.

She was letting him lie on her because it made the soulmate bond positively hum in approval. It was . . . pleasant. And while she wasn't going to be falling into his lap anytime soon, letting him lean on her like this when he initiated it was alright. She could deal with that. It could quiet her mind for a little while.

His heavy lashes nearly brushed his cheeks. It irritated her that he was so much prettier than she was. She tugged lightly on a chunk of hair in retribution.

"Why?" he drawled, giving no indication he was planning on moving.

"Mission."

He grunted and closed his eyes again. "I'd forgotten what it's like to be at the beck and call of a village," he mumbled.

"Oh, yes. So much better than being at the beck and call of the Akatsuki."

Sasori made an unimpressed sound. "What's the mission?"

She scoffed. "I'm not telling you that."

"Why?"

She scoffed again.

Sasori sighed heavily. "I already told you I'm no danger to you, doll-face."

"But you are to my village." And Naruto.

"I'm coming with you."

Her eyebrows shot up. "In case you've forgotten, you and your partner literally _just_ kidnapped Gaara and nearly killed him. Oh, and you also destroyed a good portion of the village. Going back there? Yeah, not the best idea."

"Are you always this sarcastic or am I just lucky?"

She rolled her eyes. "You need to go soon, too. Someone is undoubtedly going to be knocking on my window sooner rather than later, and I'd rather not give them a heart attack when they see you."

He cracked open his eyes again. "Window?"

She sighed, and it was one of those sighs that could only be borne from long suffering and repeated arguments no one listened to. "No one seems to appreciate the use of a door."

Sasori's face twisted into someone vaguely resembling a sneer. "It's your day off. You just got back from a mission."

"Oh, yeah," she drawled. "Because the mission was just _so_ exhausting."

He ignored her. "This is exactly why I defected." He sniffed daintily.

" _Anyways_ ," she said, looking back at her book about rare and deadly poisons. "I'm leaving tomorrow. And no, you're not going into Suna with me."

"I'll walk you there," he said, and it was like he was telling her he was going to walk her to her front door after going out to get dinner.

She didn't look down at him even as she felt his eyes on her face. "Am I meeting your partner?"

"Interested, doll-face?" Sasori asked, and there was something heavy and deadly in his voice.

A smile tugged at the corners of her lips. "Might as well meet him sooner rather than later. I get the feeling you two are a package deal."

"Well, in that case, yeah," a voice spoke from her window, left open ever since Sasori got caught in her trap. "It's nice to finally meet Sasori-danna's soulmate. Gotta say, you're _much_ hotter than I was expecting, yeah."

Sakura looked up long enough to watch another one of her traps spring into place at the unidentified chakra signature the second Deidara put one foot in her living room. And then he was strung high in the air, blubbering and screaming something about his hair and the wires tangled in it.

Sakura silently thanked whatever intuition had made her put up silencing seals around her apartment. She'd surely be getting complaints from the neighbors about noise control otherwise.

Sasori mumbled something that sounded like "Brat," and promptly went back to his catnap on her lap. Sakura watched the other Akatsuki member struggle a moment longer and made a hand sign to release one of the other traps, releasing a sleeping jutsu, and returned to her book.

She'd deal with them both after she finished this chapter.

* * *

Author's Note: Chapters will likely be slow going and short for a bit. School is killing me, guys. Also, this story is just being difficult. I don't know why.

Please **REVIEW**! Updates will be quicker if you guys tell me what you're liking/what you're not a fan of. Tell me where you want this story to go. Communication is key, and I do like to know what you guys want to see in future chapters. It's interesting for me.


	5. Chapter 5

Standard disclaimer applies.

* * *

Suna was too hot.

Konoha could be awful in the summer, but Suna was a different kind of heat. This: a dry, smothering kind of heat made everything a little fuzzier. Sakura didn't understand how Temari and Gaara weren't sweating—at least, not like she was. She'd already gone through five water packs and she hadn't even been in the village for a full day.

She wasn't quite sure where her soulmate had disappeared to. He'd kept his promise and "walked" her to Suna. It had been irritating how every other person they'd passed on the way there had gotten a death glare and—even one time—a drop of poison left in their drink. A man had gotten a little too close to her at an Inn, and Sasori had apparently taken it as a personal affront.

She'd made him keep his Akatsuki robe off during the trip. The last thing she wanted to deal with was rumors of the Hokage's apprentice kicking it with a member of that organization.

She also hadn't allowed him to travel openly with her. She'd made him promise to search the area around them at all times for other chakra signals and to beat it if there was one. When they stopped at Inns or stopped for a break, Sakura made him keep his distance. He'd pouted at that.

Deidara, by proxy, had come along too, which was giving Sakura no short of conniptions at the thought of leading two Akatsuki members to a powerful village they'd literally _just_ attacked.

It wasn't like they didn't already know where the village was, she assured herself when the anxiety would start to set in. If they wanted to attack the village or Gaara again, they didn't need her help for it.

Deidara was surprisingly good company. You know, for a terrorist member who had an inclination for blowing up people. She'd made a very blunt promise before they'd set out to Suna together that if he so much as picked up his clay she'd punch him back to his own village. He'd just grinned fiendishly at her. Sasori had pouted some more.

But he hadn't blown anyone up. Killed a few people, yes, but they'd attacked first, so Sakura shrugged it off. She might have killed a few as well. Sasori had watched her with a sickeningly proud look on his face when she was wiping the blood from her hands off afterwards.

Deidara was a lot like Naruto. Blonde and loud and rambunctious. It made her throat close up when she realized that if the situation were different, if fate had handed them different cards, they could have been a shinobi team. Deidara as Naruto, bright and loud. Sasori as Sasuke, moody and forever personally offended by anything living.

Once they'd gotten near the gates to Suna, both had disappeared. She couldn't feel their chakra signatures, but that was no surprise.

She wasn't naïve enough, however, to think that they weren't nearby.

Temari had greeted her at the gate with a grin and narrowed eyes against the sun's gleam. Sakura would swear that the sun was closer to this village than to her own, it's harsh winds chapping her lips and buffering against her eyes. Land of Wind, indeed. Maybe more like Land of Pain and Sunburns.

Sakura was led to the siblings' home. Gaara greeted her at the door with a nod and a small quirking of lips. She supposed that saving his life got her a few brownie points. All the better for their village relations, she thought.

She was led to the room Kankuro was lying in. He was half propped up on a couch, pillows behind his back as he twiddled with what appeared to be one of his puppets. Tools were lying about on the couch and the floor around him, and Sakura blinked when she realized his face was clear of any paint.

She eyed Gaara out of the corner of her eye and took note that his eyes were still lined with black. She had betted money with Shikamaru a while ago that it was actually face paint he applied every morning.

Kankuro looked up at their approach. One of his hands that was holding what looking like tweezers twitched when he saw Sakura.

He turned to glare at his siblings. "You didn't tell me we were having company."

Sakura narrowed her eyes. Temari snorted. "Sorry little brother," she drawled. "We didn't give you time to put on your makeup."

Gaara's face didn't so much as twitch. Sakura again eyed the black lining his eyes, suspicious.

Kankuro's cheeks heated.

Sakura stepped in. "I heard that you're experiencing aftershocks from the poison?" she asked before the siblings could get into a fight. She'd seen what Temari could do with her fan and she wasn't too keen on ever dealing with puppets again, thanks-ever-so-much.

Kankuro frowned. "Yeah. Nothing too bad, but sometimes my muscles will freeze up or I'll get bad cramps."

Temari pursed her lips. Sakura thought she heard her mutter something about men being wimps and how would he like it if he switched his cramps for hers?

Sakura cleared her throat. "Alright. That doesn't sound too bad but let's take a look."

Gaara left once she started running her standard chakra check on his brother's body, but Temari stayed, leaning against the doorframe and frowning every time she caught her little brother eyeing the Hokage's apprentice with something more than patient-doctor appreciation.

"Okay." Sakura rubbed her hands together, warming them up and bundling a small amount of chakra into the center of her palms. "I'm going to look at your organs now. Take off your shirt."

Kankuro blinked at her, wide eyed.

Sakura internally rolled her eyes, thinking all men were the same when it came to getting check-ups. Wide eyed and scared witless.

Temari cleared her throat, amused.

Once Kankuro had haphazardly pulled his shirt over his head, Sakura laid her hands over his abdomen, feeling his muscle tense and flinch under her hands.

After a few minutes of tense silence, Sakura pulled away and gave Kankuro his shirt back. "I'm not seeing anything off, so it could just be a side-effect of the poison that will go away with time. I don't know as much as I'd like about this particular poison since no one has ever seen its kind before. I'm going to take some blood samples and run a few more tests over the next couple of days to see if I can make any progress. Okay?" She looked between Temari and Kankuro, and they both nodded.

She watched out of the corner of her eye as Temari started to fuss over her little brother, pulling him away from his tools and puppets. He was flushed and growling at her about how he could take care of himself, and Sakura felt something twist in herself.

Temari left to get Sakura a cup of tea. Kankuro looked over at her, shirt now on, and said, "Thank you for coming here. Thank you for . . . you know, saving me and my brother. I don't think I've told you that before."

"It's no problem." Kankuro gave her a withering glance. She felt the corners of her lips quirk up. "I like a challenge," she said.

He rolled his eyes rather dramatically. "Says the girls who fought against an Akatsuki member after healing me of an unknown poison. And, oh yeah, saving the Kazekage."

She grinned with far too many teeth on display. If only he knew that Akatsuki member was her soulmate, she thought. The response might be a tad different. "Technically it was Naruto and Chiyo and the rest of the team too."

Kankuro waved a hand dismissively. "I'm still amazed that old hag was still alive, to be honest."

Sakura pursed her lips. "She was quite impressive."

"Oh, I've no doubt," Kankuro said. "It takes quite a bit of spite, though, to stay alive as long as she did." He looked up at her, fiddling with one of his tools. "You saved my brother and me and pretty much my entire village," he went on. "That's all I'm saying. So if there's anything that I can ever do to repay that debt, tell me."

Sakura tilted her head and licked her lips. "Actually," she said, "what can you tell me about puppets?"

* * *

Sakura stayed in Suna for another week, working with Kankuro and Suna's medical team, hashing out orders and giving high-handed "recommendations" to Gaara about the hospital when she'd fly into his office in an angry flurry, which happened more often than she'd care to admit. She'd never quite appreciated Konoha's medical staff until she went to other villages.

Kankuro's side-effects slowly went away after she nearly forced feed the boy some of the new "antidotes" she'd been working on. After the first one had brought Kankuro to his knees as he tried not to retch—if only because Sakura threatened to make him drink another one if he did—she had to track him down to get him to take anything else. Most of the time she could find him hiding out in Gaara's office, having learned the hard way Temari would sell him out in an instant. Gaara would just watch in what Sakura could only infer as amusement as she chased Kankuro all over the village, not caring as long as they didn't demolish anything.

How silly. Sakura would never demolish another village than her own, especially one Konoha had just good relations with.

After a while, the side-effects slowly withered away, and even though they weren't completely gone when she packed her bags and left, enough progress was seen to not worry. Gaara saw her to the village's gate. Kankuro and Temari had been sent out on a mission of some sort and had said their goodbyes the night before.

Gaara turned to her when they'd both stopped, his red hair moving along with the wind. That was another thing Sakura would never be okay with: the sandy wind. She understood why Temari used it as such a deadly weapon.

"Thank you for coming out to take a look at Kankuro," Gaara said.

Sakura gave a half-hearted smile. "It was no problem, Kazekage-sama."

"Gaara," he corrected her.

Sakura just nodded, still smiling stiffly. She had never been quite able to forget when they were children and Gaara had let the one-tailed beast take over his form, throwing her against a tree and knocking her out. Not that she blamed him, of course, but the fact that the man never did show any emotion did make it difficult to be at ease around him.

Of course, Gaara no longer had the one-tailed beast locked inside of him.

"I'd like to know of Kankuro's progress," she said instead. Gaara nodded and handed her a scroll to deliver to Tsunade.

She bowed and was off. Surprisingly, she made it back to Konoha without even one interruption, from her soulmate or otherwise.

* * *

It wasn't until another month had passed that Sakura began to feel a restlessness. Which was odd, since between her hospital shifts and training and the occasional mission, Sakura went to bed in the very early morning hours and still awoke in the early morning hours. So when she found herself wide awake most nights and anxious, she began to worry.

She let it pass for about a week, but when her hands started to shake during the day for no good reason, she started to take some medications. She stayed on that medication for two weeks, then added another kind to it by the third week.

By the fourth week, Sakura went to see Tsunade.

The Hokage took one look at her, with her shaking hands and dark eyes and pale skin, and immediately told her to take some mandatory time off. She was no good to anyone as she was, and she was to go on a mission to a nearby village to pick up some good sake. Tsunade didn't specify what kind of sake, just to make it good.

"I've taught you well, my apprentice," Tsunade had said gravely. It had almost gotten a snort out of Sakura.

Sasori hadn't approached her since dropping her off at the gates of Suna. There hadn't been any carved wooden flowers in her apartment, though that may have just been because he didn't want to deal with her traps again.

It worried her. Not simply because her hands were shaking and sometimes it felt like her soul was trembling with the distance, but because it likely meant he was going on missions for the Akatsuki. She tried not to think about what that meant.

She had to stop halfway on her way to the gambling village to rest. She threw up three times before she could go on.

Kakashi had nodded at her, gazed at her with an eye that saw far too much, when she told him and Naruto she was leaving on a short mission.

"Stay safe, Sakura-chan," Kakashi had said, patting her on the shoulder. He'd handed her one of his little orange books. "Just try not to think too much."

Oh, sure. Not think.

Though she _had_ finished about half of that book. It was surprisingly addictive.

Sakura had halfway expected (maybe hoped) Sasori would find her when she left Konoha. She thought maybe Tsunade had given her the mission just so she could reconnect with Sasori, restore her soul's balance.

Was this what killing him was going to feel like?

It hadn't even been three months since she last saw him, and it already hurt this badly. It wasn't a physical pain—she could have dealt with physical pain, but this kind of gut-wrenching sorrow was something so much worse.

If this was what she was going to have to live with when she killed him—

She wasn't going to finish that thought. Not yet. _Compartmentalize,_ she told herself, as she always did. Deal with that later.

But Sasori was nowhere to be seen. She even found herself searching for his chakra signature, knowing that even if he had it cloaked her soul would recognize him. But there was nothing but silence.

When she made it to the little gambling village, Sakura only had enough energy to find an Inn and fall face-first onto the grimy bed. And when she awoke, she found that she wasn't rested, felt like she hadn't even slept.

She hunted for good sake all the next day. Found it rather quickly, drank too much of it, bought another few bottles. Stumbled around the village and found a nice bathing place. Almost passed out in the bath, which was concerning, and then drank some more sake, this time not tasting it and not worrying if it was good sake or not.

A small part of her brain was worrying about all the alcohol she was drinking mixed with the medicine she was taking, but she had enough left of her mind to cleanse her body every once in a while. Mixing substances wasn't something she was too worried about.

Then one day she just didn't leave the room she was renting out. She finished Kakashi's book within a few hours and went out once for food and to buy the next two books in the series. Then she read some more in bed.

And things were alright, for a bare moment.

After a week, Sakura packed up the good sake she hadn't drank and left. She wasn't past the first gambling din when she picked up a voice she hadn't heard in years.

She froze behind a crumbling building in a tiny ally, listening as she heard her old teammate drawl out orders to three other shinobi, looking perpetually bored. And for the first time in months, her hands stopped shaking and her heart slowed down from its ever-pounding cacophony of anxiety and stress, and every cell in her body was filled with nothing but rage.

Sasuke _fucking_ Uchiha was standing not a few yards away.

* * *

Author's Note: Well, this was a quick update. No Sasori this chapter, but he'll be back the next. This story will skip around a lot, but I'll try to keep it clear.

Please **REVIEW**! I'm not getting as many reviews as before and more reviews means faster updates! ;p There will be more Akatsuki interactions later as well.

Also, y'all need to go read VesperChan's story, _White Rabbit (Raise it Up)_ , because it's just freaking fantastic. It's got faeries and everything, and, really, what more could you ask for than hot fey Uchihas and strong Sakura? ;p


	6. Chapter 6

Standard disclaimer applies.

* * *

Sakura idly wondered if Naruto would forgive her if she killed their old teammate.

It was just a half-thought. She'd never completely understood his and Sasuke's fucked up dynamic, only that she wasn't a part of it.

Sasuke was standing a few yards away from the dingy ally she was standing in, half turned away from her so she could only see half of his face, half of what looked like a ridiculous new wardrobe. She watched some redheaded girl with an odd haircut fawn over him in a way that was a little too reminiscent of what Sakura used to be like. Two other boys stood a few feet away, one grinning fiendishly with an odd complexion and the other looking like he'd rather be anywhere but here.

It crossed her mind that Sasuke might know she was there and just didn't care. Kami knew his hubris knew no bounds, and Sakura hadn't been anything to fear when she was younger.

She considered stepping out and punching him right on that perfect jawline of his, but immediately dismissed that thought. His three teammates would undoubtedly come to his rescue, though Sakura knew he wouldn't need it. Sasuke, for all his pride and swagger, was, in fact, a force to be reckoned with. And she really didn't feel like destroying this little gambling village. The sake _was_ actually really good.

So she walked away.

* * *

Sasuke hung upside-down from a tree, shirt ripped and scowling. Sakura was pretty sure one of his eyebrows—the one that wasn't burnt to a crisp—was twitching. The wire and near invisible thread wrapped around him was specially made to prevent any chakra use, instead steadily sucking what was left of Sasuke's chakra reserves away.

Neji had taught her a few things. Like pressure points. And Sakura had enough understanding of the human body to know where on a person would be the best place to inject a paralyzing poison. It had taken a bit more than she'd expected to get Sasuke down to be sure, but she'd managed it.

Sakura panted heavily. She'd subdued the other three teammates by paying off some traveling mist shinobi—anonymously, of course—to keep them busy, preferably knocked out. Killed only if necessary.

They hadn't shown up anytime during the fight, and it'd been one of the longer fights she'd had before. Her fight with Sasori might have been a bit longer, but not by much.

Sakura stepped forward, closing the last bit of distance between her and Sasuke, and punched his across the face.

He spat blood and glared at her. His eye was bleeding, and Sakura wasn't sure if she should feel flattered or insulted that he'd thought to use his black fire thing on her. Honestly, though.

"How'd you find me?" Sasuke growled.

"Chance," she panted. "Luck. Maybe a little bit of karma."

It'd taken her off guard, how much better she felt during their fight. She hadn't thought about Sasori once and she felt strangely _alive_. If this was the end result, she thought, she should really punch Sasuke more often.

His arms and hands were pinned flat to his sides via her specially enhanced wires. After fighting with Chiyo and fighting against Sasori, she'd gotten a few ideas on wire and its use in battle. She watched as Sasuke's face slowly rose in color, the bruises on his face and chest more pronounced.

Sakura was pretty sure her left arm was broken, and she didn't have the chakra reserve to fix it right then. She'd already dipped into the chakra stored in her diamond shaped seal, but she didn't want to do it again unless absolutely necessary. She cradled it in her right arm and gritted her teeth. That last punch had felt like she'd shattered it all over again.

She swallowed, tasting too much blood. She'd bitten her tongue to help her snap out of Sasuke's genjutsu earlier. She was forever thankful her training with Ino and Kurenai had taught her to have a strong conscious and how to stop herself from falling into genjutsus so easily. And how to snap herself out of one if she did.

"Congratulations," Sasuke drawled in his over-superior voice, the one that made her itch to punch his face again. "You've got me trapped. What's your plan now?" He sneered at her. "Going to kill me, Sakura? Whatever happened to your little, pathetic crush—"

She hit him in the handy little pressure point Neji had shown her to knock someone out. She'd forgotten just how infuriating the fucker could be.

Sakura eyed Sasuke, who now had blood coming out of nearly every part of him. She wasn't quite sure how she was going to get him back to the village and again wondered if killing him was an option.

And then she felt the familiar buzz cut through her thoughts and physically forced herself to not turn around. "Are you fucking kidding me?" she mumbled to herself, then said louder, "Great, more Akatsuki members. I'm just that lucky today, aren't I?"

She heard some loud laughter. "Squirt's got some spunk! Gotta say that it was nice to watch the Uchiha brat get his ass handed to him, especially by someone so pink and tiny."

Sakura turned around very, very slowly. "' _Pink and tiny_ '?" she nearly hissed, and even though she was exhausted, she felt her hackles begin to rise again. " _That's_ what you came up with?"

There was a long-suffering sigh. "I apologize for my partner, Haruno-san," Itachi Uchiha said, standing next to the man she presumed was Kisame Hoshigaki, going by his unusual colored skin and sharp teeth. Her Bingo Book had been right about his shark-like appearance.

She snorted, and maybe if she hadn't been so tired she would have been more concerned over the fact she was standing in a desolated field with the man's younger brother knocked out and bloody behind her, hanging from a broken tree with two powerful Akatsuki members in front of her. "Better than your brother, at least," she muttered.

Kisame's grin, if possible, got wider. His eyes gleamed at her.

Itachi just stood there.

She blinked and narrowed her eyes. If her left hand wasn't broken she would have put her hands on her hips. "Is there a reason you're both here _or_ . . ." She raised an eyebrow.

Kisame laughed again. "So spunky!"

Itachi blinked slowly at her. "You got yourself out of a Uchiha genjutsu."

"Yes."

"My foolish little brother isn't exactly the best material for it, but it's still a Uchiha genjutsu."

"Yes?"

"That you broke out of. Without assistance."

"I get the feeling this bothers you somehow."

"Hn."

Sakura fought back a groan. "Oh, Kami," she mock whispered in Kisame's direction. "It runs in the family."

The man almost kneeled over, laughing until it sounded like coughing.

A smile tugged at Sakura's lips. She felt quite proud of herself. Who knew she would be so good with mass murderers? (Maybe she should get a cat.)

Kami, she was exhausted.

Itachi was studiously ignoring them both. After a moment of them all standing there in the small patch of land Sakura and Sasuke had basically demolished with the latter still hanging upside-down behind her, all his blood rushing to his head, Kisame still bent over laughing and using his gigantic sword to hold himself up, Itachi's eyes darted to look at her injured arm.

"You're injured," he said. Prodigy, indeed.

Sakura did his slow blink right back at him. It probably wasn't a very good idea to mock a mass murderer like this, but she blamed her actions on her chakra exhaustion.

"The only thing that offsets your brother's hubris and hatred of the shinobi world is that he _is_ a decent opponent," Sakura said, somewhat reluctantly. "You know, when he isn't spouting off about revenge and family and rebuilding his clan, _yada, yada, yada_."

"He is a very foolish boy," Itachi agreed, like this was something the world was just now coming to understand.

"He went to be the apprentice of creepy snake dude," Sakura deadpanned.

Kisame, who had just begun to calm down, took a knee at that and started laughing with renewed vigor. He looked up at his partner, his face turning a sort of fascinating purple. "Can we keep her?"

Sakura felt herself bristle.

She would swear she saw Itachi almost roll his eyes heavenwards. He politely cleared his throat. "Sasori would not appreciate it if we tried to 'keep' his soulmate."

Sakura groaned and closed her eyes. "He told you? That _bastard_."

Kisame snorted. "Wasn't too hard to figure out, squirt. Kid's been downright bright eyed and spunky lately—" Sakura tried and failed to imagine Sasori ' _spunky_ ,' though it did give her an amusing image. "—and it all started right after his little battle with you and the old hag."

"Deidara also could not keep quiet," Itachi added. That made more sense.

"Is that why you're both here?" Sakura narrowed her eyes. "Because I don't think I'm that interesting and I'd imagine you both have better things to do."

Itachi's eyes flicked to Sasuke. "I'd heard my little brother was nearby. We are overdue for our battle."

"Oh." If Sakura listened carefully, she could hear the wet rattle in Sasuke's chest when he breathed. "Sorry about that."

"It is not problem," Itachi said, waving her apology off. "From what I understand, he deserved it."

They all stood there for a moment longer.

"O- _kay_ ," Sakura finally said. "I think I'm gonna go now."

Kisame tilted his head at her. "Not going to attack us, squirt? Pity."

She snorted. "I broke my arm, am quite exhausted, and see no reason to attack either one of you. That would be rude."

Itachi blinked. "Your arm is not broken, Haruno-san."

"Well, not _anymore_ ," she huffed, having been slowly channeling small bits of healing chakra to it during their conversation. "Travelling with a broken arm isn't exactly ideal."

She wondered if she was going to be able to drag Sasuke back to the village or if Itachi would just want to kill him now. He didn't seem like the kind of guy who would kill an unconscious enemy, though Sakura also wouldn't have depicted him as the kind of guy to murder his whole family. So.

Because if Itachi was going to try to stop her from taking Sasuke with her, he could fucking well have him. Sorry, Naruto, she thought, but she wasn't about to go up against Itachi fucking Uchiha for the betraying little shit.

Sakura risked a glance over her shoulder to look at Sasuke. His face was turning an interesting puce color. The black eye she'd given him was looking pretty bad, too.

She felt so proud of herself.

When she looked back, Kisame was watching Itachi with a thoughtful expression. Well, thoughtful for a shark, which also just kind of looked like he was hungry.

"I'm going to take him back to the village," she said, just to see if either of them was going to fight her on it.

Itachi nodded. "That is probably for the best," he said. "He has much to still understand."

Sakura narrowed her eyes at the phrasing, but didn't say anything about it. "Where's Sasori, anyway?" she asked instead.

Kisame snorted. "Trouble in paradise already? I mean, the kid _is_ a puppet and has the social graces of a scorpion—"

Itachi's eyelashes fluttered and she would swear one side of his mouth curled up.

"—but it could have been worse."

Yes, Sakura thought. It really could have.

"He'd been keeping close to me and then suddenly disappeared." She shifted from foot-to-foot. "I assumed he was on Akatsuki business, but . . ." She shrugged.

Kisame hummed. "Kid's on a mission, I think." He looked at Itachi for conformation, who nodded after a moment of hesitation. "Soulmate bond bothering you?"

Sakura pursed her lips. "It's been . . . interesting."

"Hn," Itachi said. "We will let him know we spoke to you, Haruno-san."

Well, she wasn't sure what else she should have expected, but it wasn't that response. Sakura nodded and turned to look at Sasuke, again wondering how in hell she was going to drag him _and_ the good sake back to Konoha by herself.

When she looked back, both Akatsuki members were gone.

* * *

It took her an extra day and a half to get back to the village than it would have if she'd been by herself. Instead, Sakura had to keep stopping along the way to continuously knock Sasuke out or drug him some more. She'd never been so glad to have the foresight to carry her poison pouch on her at all times.

There was a little bit of a panic when she'd casually walked up to the gates of Konoha with an unconscious man on her back who, of course, was Sasuke Uchiha. The two stationed guards at the gate hadn't really known what to do with him—or her for that matter—since typically altercations with rogue ninja were dealt with in terms of killing blows, not incapacitating blows. Hauling said rogue ninja back to the village was simply not done.

But when the guards had looked at Sasuke like they were debating just killing him then and there, Sakura had made sure to casually remind them she was the Hokage's apprentice and had recently gone up against an Akatsuki member and lived to tell the tale (details notwithstanding), and so they should maybe rethink things lest an unfortunate accident happen.

Eventually one of the guards had sullenly gone to alert the Hokage of Sasuke Uchiha's not-so-consensual return and Sakura was left with the boy in question on her back, out cold, in awkward silence with the other guard. They did not make eye-contact.

And, of course, because Naruto was a little sneak and had just so happened to overhear about the teme's return, he was the first one to greet her.

To his credit, he'd spared one glance at their old teammate and then let his eyes glide over him as if he wasn't even there. Instead he looked at Sakura and took in her appearance, which was, she was sure, something a bit of a fright since she hadn't gotten much of a chance to clean herself up since her fight with Sasuke. He walked up and took Sasuke off her back, ignoring her sound of protest that she could still carry him, and hauled him onto his own back, grinning at her in a way that cut off any protest. Sakura was secretly grateful; her back was killing her.

Tsunade arrived not much later, barking out orders to put the Uchiha brat into a chakra sealed holding cell until further notice. A pang went through Sakura at the knowledge that Sasuke would be interrogated at some point. She had no fond feelings for the man, but he'd still been her teammate at one point, no matter how much of an ass he was.

"Do you have the sake?" was the first thing Tsunade asked her when she was back in her office.

Sakura pulled out the bottles and Tsunade made a pleased sound, taking them from her and immediately pouring herself some. She took a sip and hummed, pouring Sakura some and waving at her to sit down.

"When I sent you out to get good sake," Tsunade began, "it wasn't a coded message to bring back the very opposite of good sake."

"But I did bring back good sake," Sakura pointed out.

Tsunade grunted. After a moment, she said, "You look better."

"I don't think I could have looked worse if I'd tried."

"True. Did you—"

"No." Sakura knew the room had the most powerful silencing seals on it—which Tsunade had activated the moment they entered—and the window had been closed to prevent anyone from overhearing their conversation, but the paranoid part of Sakura still didn't want it being said out loud.

Tsunade grunted again and folded her hands together. "Stupid man."

Sakura rolled her eyes. "Aren't they all?"

She raised her sake in a kind of salute. "I have taught you well, my apprentice."

"I've been around Naruto too long."

"Jiraiya's worse."

Sakura couldn't argue that. She licked her lips. "I ran into Itachi Uchiha and Kisame Hoshigaki. We conversed."

Tsunade didn't even blink. "Fuck."

"Quite."

"And Itachi Uchiha didn't attempt to take Sasuke?"

Sakura shook her head. "He wasn't interested."

"You didn't exchange blows?"

"I'd just finished fighting Sasuke. They didn't attack me and I knew I'd lose if I'd attacked them."

Tsunade rubbed the spot between her eyes. "Do they know?"

"Yes."

"Fuck."

"Yes."

Sakura had had the fun experience of telling Tsunade before she'd left for her mission to Suna about Sasori and Deidara's little surprise visit to her apartment. Tsunade hadn't been pleased, but hadn't been wholly surprised either. "They got into Suna without much trouble and kidnapped Gaara," Tsunade had said. "We'd be idiots to think sneaking into Konoha would be much more of a challenge."

Tsunade poured herself another glass of sake and threw it back before rummaging under her desk for a scroll. She set it on her desk and looked at it, leaning back in her chair and folding her hands across her lap.

She looked at Sakura. "This is a mission scroll for an indefinitely long mission to infiltrate the Akatsuki and report back when possible. It's classified as a suicide mission, since our attempts before have all failed and none of our Anbu members have returned. I'm going to give you the choice to accept or deny this mission."

Sakura swallowed thickly. "They already know who I am. I'd never be able to infiltrate—"

Tsunade held up a hand. "I don't want you to infiltrate the Akatsuki."

Sakura blinked.

Tsunade cleared her throat, looked at her with steady eyes. "If you choose to accept this mission, I want you to go out and do whatever the hell you want. If that means finding the Akatsuki—" _Finding Sasori,_ Sakura thought. "—then fine. Do that. If it means hunting down rogue ninja or collecting information for Konoha, do that. I don't care. But you're no good here if every month without your soulmate makes you as sick as it did before, and if you're in this shape, I can't imagine what your puppet boy's like. He'll just keep breaking into Konoha, and I don't love the idea of one or more Akatsuki members visiting all the time. Someone is bound to notice."

Her stomach dropped. It wasn't the same as being told she was useless, but those insecurities loved to rise their ugly heads at the best of times. Everything Tsunade was saying was right and Sakura knew it. She'd even seen something like this coming, but that didn't make the blow any less painful.

Tsunade sighed. "Those fucking elders will find out sooner or later, and I'd prefer you not to be in the vicinity when that happens. They'll use you as bait."

And there was always that. Sakura knew being used as bait was a high possibility the moment she returned to the village with a permeant red mark over her heart. It didn't matter that she and Sasori were soulmates. It didn't matter that she was a loyal, powerful shinobi. All she was in the elders' eyes was a tool to be used, and if they found out about her soulmate bond with an Akatsuki member, she'd just be a very valuable tool.

"And if I don't accept the mission?" Sakura asked softly.

"Then you don't accept the mission." Tsunade shrugged. "You'll go about as normal and we'll give you more missions for you and your puppet boy to meet up outside Konoha. We keep it a secret for as long as possible."

But it couldn't stay a secret forever, was what went unsaid. They both knew it.

"You're not the first shinobi for this to happen to, Sakura," Tsunade said softly, her lips turned down. "Maybe not on this level, but concessions have been made before when two soulmates from waring villages found each other."

"But not on this level," Sakura murmured. Not on an Akatsuki level. Not on what was looking to be one of the bloodiest shinobi wars.

Tsunade hesitated. "Not for a very long time, no."

Sakura nodded, began to make an itinerary list in her mind, and bowed. "Then I accept the mission, Tsunade-sama."

* * *

Author's Note: I promise Sasori will be back next chapter! But, hey, Itachi and Kisame arrived, huh? I love those two.

Also, yes, things are different here than in canon. They're supposed to be. Especially from here on out, canon doesn't really exist.

Please **REVIEW**! I got so many nice reviews last chapter and it just made me want to write this so quickly. Y'all are fantastic. Thank you for all the favorites and/or comments! ;p


	7. Chapter 7

Standard disclaimer applies.

* * *

All she told Naruto and Kakashi and Ino was that she was leaving on an extended mission. That was all she needed to say, along with one remark to Naruto when he pushed to know what it was, what with the teme being back and all, about it being classified. Which it was, technically.

They were shinobi. They knew the rules. So they smiled and told her to be safe and Sakura smiled and hugged them and tried not to think this might be the last time she ever saw them.

She left three days after she returned to the village and accepted the mission. Tsunade gave her time to pack her things, recuperate from bringing back Sasuke, and just take some time to take care of herself. She was glad for it.

When she left at dawn on the fourth day, Sakura—once again—debated within herself on where to go first. A large part of her wanted to give a tug on the soulmate bond and find Sasori—she knew she could do it, which also meant Sasori could do the same, making her stomach twist when she thought too hard about it.

The other part of her wanted to find a small, mostly peaceful village with no ties to Konoha and wait until the war. She wouldn't hide when she could help, but she did wonder if staying out of the way would be the best thing to do until then. It was the reason she accepted this mission, after all. Stay away from what mattered to her so Sasori would also stay away from what mattered.

But she couldn't be idle. She'd been trained at an early age to never be idle. If a shinobi had extra time, they trained. They learned a new jutsu. They recuperated after a hard mission. But every second had a purpose.

She huffed out a breath and hoisted her traveling sack over her back. Then she started walking.

* * *

In the end, the soulmate bond made the choice for her. She wasn't even halfway to the Land of Tea when she felt the bond tug on her. It was like having a live wire inside of herself, pulling her to the side until she was heading in a direction perpendicular to where she meant to go.

Sakura muttered damnings to herself all the way there. Stupid soulmate bond with its stupid decision making skills and damn fucking Sasori who just couldn't have died when she crushed his heart and damn herself for feeling this way for a man who should, by all reason, be her enemy. And he still was her enemy, she supposed. It just took her by surprise how much everything in her being rejected that thought.

It was a very good thing she was better at listening to her mind than her body.

It was the explosion that first alerted her. The invisible thread bonding her and Sasori together had been getting harder and harder to ignore as she got closer, but the explosion that rocked the earth and the smoke that went up in the sky was also a pretty good indicator of where she was heading.

As she got closer, Sakura began to rethink her life choices. Particularly her choice to head towards what was becoming rabidly obvious as a shinobi battle with at least two Akatsuki members.

Another explosion rocked the ground and Sakura heard maniacal laughter up ahead. Deidara. She paused, thinking.

A body zoomed past her, nothing but a shadow to her eyes. She'd already hidden her chakra signature and placed herself behind a tree, but she still felt her heart clench when she saw the body being thrown into another tree.

There was a groan, and a man pushed himself up from the ground. Sakura narrowed her eyes at him, chewing on her bottom lip. She vaguely remembered his face from her Bingo Book.

"Oi! Sasori-danna, what the hell are you doing?"

She didn't need to look to know Sasori had found her. But when she did, she found his red hair to be mussed and to be covered in dirt and dripping wet. Obviously there had been a water jutsu thrown around at some point.

He watched her from beneath heavy lashes, a curl to his lips. Sakura's hand twitched, and she wasn't sure if she wanted to run her hands through his hair or smack that smirk off his face.

Deidara came barreling out of the sky, having come in using some clay bird thing. Sakura had the horrible feeling it was meant to explode.

"Sakura-chan!" Deidara exclaimed, actually looking glad to see her. She wasn't sure how to feel about that.

There was a huff from behind her, and Sakura looked over her shoulder at the man who'd been thrown into a tree. He was cut up pretty badly and nursing a nasty looking burn on his left arm.

"I think I'm interrupting something," she murmured.

The man glared at her. Sakura fluttered her lashes at him and tried to look nonthreatening.

Thankfully, Sakura had had the foresight to removed her Hidden Lead headband. No reason to let anyone know who she was while she was around Akatsuki members. She watched as the man took this in, narrowing his eyes.

"Doll-face," Sasori said fondly, coming impossibly closer to her, reminding her they still needed to have that chat about boundaries. "How kind of you to find me."

"I'm on a mission." Technically not untrue.

"Hmm."

Deidara was advancing on the man by the tree, grinning fiendishly. Sakura sucked in a breath and looked at the man's headband, which held the Mist symbol on it.

Sakura made eye-contact with him, who was still assessing her uncertainly, and flicked her eyes to the east. He swallowed and was off like a shot. Deidara laughed and launched after him.

She turned back to Sasori, who was staring and licked his lips when he caught her gaze. Something in her chest jumped and she kept her face blank, uninterested.

"You've been gone," was the first thing out of her mouth, and Sakura could have kicked herself for it. "The soulmate bond's been particularly annoying lately."

His eyelashes lowered over his amber eyes. "Hmm. I've been on a mission, as I'm sure Itachi and Kisame informed you."

Oh, so he knew about that. She shrugged. "Long mission."

"Miss me, doll-face?"

"Yes."

And, oh, it was so satisfying watching his eyes flare at that, for his mouth to open just the slightest bit at her unapologetic truth.

"But you already knew that," she went on, sweetly. "Soulmate bond been bothering you?"

Sasori composed himself quicker than she'd like and smirked at her. "Yes," he drawled, leaning down until they were only a few inches apart. "But you already knew that."

They both heard loud cursing from the east. There was another, smaller explosion that rocked the earth.

Sasori hummed thoughtfully. "I'd have hoped the brat would've seen through your trap a little quicker, doll-face."

Icy panic started to trace down her spine, but she forced herself to keep smiling sweetly at him. "I've no idea what you're talking about."

Sasori clicked his tongue and leaned down to speak directly into her ear. "We've been hunting that jinchuuriki for some time, sweetheart. Finding him again will be tiresome."

Sakura harrumphed. "Don't blame me for your partner's inability to catch one man."

Sasori just chuckled. "Ah, but now that we'll have to start all over again, I'll be gone for some time. And since you're on a mission—" there was undertone to his voice Sakura didn't care for. "—I don't know when we'll be able to see each other again. So I suppose you'll just have to come with us."

Sakura nearly choked on the laugh that bubbled up in her throat. "That's cute, but I don't think so."

"No?"

"I don't particularly care for the idea of running around with two Akatsuki members and hunting people."

"Well—" Sasori took a moment to look like he was thinking about it, his eyes gleaming with amusement. "—it may be more than two of us, I admit. Itachi and Kisame may join us at some point, and Kisame _did_ seem quite fond of you."

Sakura muttered damnings under her breath.

"I could always make you," Sasori murmured in her ear, nuzzling her neck like a cat. "Drag you along with us and tempt you with touches and words until you came willingly." His teeth grazed her skin.

Sakura turned her head and reached up to hold his face between her palms. She leaned in to purr into his ear, "Try it, and I'll revisit my research on live vivisection."

Sakura was close enough to watch his eyes dilate and to hear the hitch in his breathing. A shiver went up her spine. The bond was humming in pleasure.

"Still want to find my heart and kill me, doll-face?"

Sakura tilted her head and smiled almost lovingly. "What makes you think I haven't already? Maybe I'm just holding it hostage for a rainy day or when you piss me off too much."

"I think I already told you that you hold my heart."

She snorted. "So cliché."

"I believe you called me an old man."

"That I did."

More swearing could be heard farther east, and it occurred to Sakura that Sasori hadn't even tried to catch the jinchuuriki.

"Your partner sounds like he needs saving," she said.

Sasori shrugged one shoulder. "The brat needs to learn how to avoid traps," he griped.

"Spoken like a true old man," Sakura quipped right back.

Sasori just licked his lips at her. "But I'm a good looking old man."

Sakura rolled her eyes heavenwards. "Yes, you're a very pretty little doll. Can we go save your partner now so he'll shut up?" Deidara's voice had progressively been getting louder and the cursing had been getting more creative.

It had also been getting harder to stop her hands from moving towards her soulmate. He stood so close to her she could feel his breath, and knew from the twitching in his hands that he was also trying to restrain himself. Her hands were still on his face, and she moved them down his chest until they rested there. She could feel muscle twitching at her touch, and it occurred to her they had never really touched like this before. Running her hands through his hair? Sure. But never like this. It was very different, she found.

Sasori watched her with greed in his eyes. His hands slowly came up to touch her neck, and it should have repulsed her. A shinobi should never let an enemy get their hands around their throat, somewhere so easily broken. But nothing in her rejected the feathery light touch.

His fingertips moved down to her collarbone, tracing the skin not covered by her vest. She'd never considered that part of herself sensitive, but touching her like he was—so light and easy, like he'd done it before—was something she wasn't used to. It occurred to her this might simply be the result of the soulmate bond, and she wasn't sure how much of this draw between them was only due to that or their personal choice. And maybe it was possible they were one and the same.

How much did it matter?

Sasori lowered his mouth to hers.

It wasn't unwelcome, but it wasn't quite welcome either. She'd still kill him, she knew. The part of her that was locked inside of herself so deeply not even the soulmate bond could reach it simmered with loyalty to her village, to her friends. She'd been conditioned to feel a certain way about someone like Sasori—not the soulmate part of him, but the Akatsuki version of him—and that wouldn't go away with a kiss or soft words.

But Sakura still kissed him back. Her hands were locked in his hair—because where else would they be?—tugging lightly and holding it in tight fists. It was wet and dripping onto her hands, but she didn't care. Her mouth had already been parted when he'd kissed her, opened mouth to opened mouth, so opening it wider was so natural. She didn't have to think about it.

It wasn't harsh, but it wasn't gentle either. Sakura wondered if most kisses were like this. She knew once she killed him they wouldn't be.

When his hands traveled under her vest to rest on her stomach, rubbing small circles onto her skin, Sakura tugged on his hair until he pulled away, cheeks flushed and eyes dark. He didn't move his hands away.

Sakura leaned in and ran her lips over his chin and again wondered where his heart was hidden.

* * *

Author's Note: I hope this makes up for having no Sasori in the last two chapters. I think he'll be in every chapter from now on, but no promises. ;p

So many nice reviews! You guys are the best and make me write quicker.

I got a question before about if Sasori could feel Sakura's broken arm and injuries from fighting Sasuke, and the answer is no. Normally he would, but because he's altered his body he can't see a reflection of her injuries on his skin or anything, which is why he didn't know he had a soulmate until Sakura almost killed him. The only injury Sasori could ever get from the soulmate bond would be if Sakura was fatally injured, like she was when he impaled her with a sword, which is why in the first chapter he "bleed." It was the soulmate bond alerting him to this, altering their connection since they don't get a reflection of the other's injuries like normal soulmates. Nature's little loophole, kind of.

Please **REVIEW**!


	8. Chapter 8

Standard disclaimer applies.

* * *

Sometimes Sakura caught herself forgetting they were all terrorists. Sometimes—and really, it was only sometimes—she _let_ herself forget.

Sasori kept his promise. After their kiss, he'd gotten bolder. What started out as innocent, faint touches across the back of her neck or on her waist when they stopped for shelter became waking up in her separate tent—something he'd pouted incessantly about—with his hand underneath her shirt as she slept on her stomach, rubbing soothing circles there as he cajoled her to eat something more than a ration bar.

Sometimes he'd even have a bowl of food waiting for her, set right next to her nose while he watched her with something like hunger in his eyes as she startled awake. She'd always grumble and think about letting herself be soothed back to sleep with his hand up her shirt—when she thought about it, it was much more calming than arousing—but that would, in some small way, be letting him win. And she couldn't have that.

For all his cooking, Sakura never saw her soulmate eat. She'd thought about asking him if his freaky puppet body needed something equally freaky to eat—maybe oil or something—but she'd always hold her tongue when she'd catch him watching her with smirk. She tried to hold off all questions when he got that damn smirk. Sakura learned early on to read his moods, and she knew when he got that look that if she engaged him in conversation they'd just both end up bickering with each other. Sometimes she even threw a tree at him, much to Deidara's delight. Sasori seemed to get a sick amount of joy from riling her up, and the worst part was that Sakura knew what he was doing and still fell for it every single time.

When Deidara commented on just that, he'd found himself the target of a rather large tree.

Sasori also seemed to be a toucher. Sakura was used to Naruto's too tight hugs and Kakashi's habit of suddenly appearing far too close to her, but Sasori was something else. Maybe it was just that the soulmate bond affected him greater than it affected her, but he was always catching her hand and running his lips over the back of it. Or leaning into her personal space until his nose grazed her hair. When they ran into enemy shinobi, Sakura tended to stay out of things, just because she was never sure which side she should be fighting on, and Kami help the shinobi who got too close to her.

It both amused and infuriated her. She highly suspected Sasori knew this.

The thing was, they didn't act like terrorists. They didn't start fights with every person they passed. They didn't glare or look particularly intimidating. Deidara smiled almost as much as Naruto, and talked just as much. It occurred to Sakura that had things been different, they might have all been teammates in another life.

She hadn't seen the world in black and white in some time. She wasn't expecting enemy shinobi to be hateful and gleeful during a bloody fight. But when she knew there'd come a day when she would have to fight them, it made knowing them like this so much worse.

She didn't want to know that Deidara spent too long on his hair in the mornings and that he couldn't cook to save his life. She didn't want to know Sasori always drank tea in the morning, a dash of honey in it if they had it on hand. She didn't want to know Deidara once helped a young woman find her way to a smaller village west of where she was heading, all the while talking with her about her kids as they escorted her there. She didn't want to know Sasori would always leave little carved wooden animals for her, sometimes hidden in her pack or presented to her when she woke up in the morning.

Those weren't things she was prepared to know.

But while Sakura tried to not think too hard about these things, Sasori ate up everything he could gather about her. Sakura's first instinct when he casually asked about her family had been to lie, not wanted to ever have their safety held against her. She'd fended off those kinds of questions for about a week before she'd hesitantly let things slip. How Ino had befriended her when they were children. The chunin exam from hell. Her civilian parents who she kept secrets from.

It was the little things, too. The things she didn't mean for him to pick up on, like how she wouldn't eat anything in the morning without first cleaning her teeth. Or how she always had to drink calming tea that had a little something extra in it before bed or else she wouldn't sleep. How she liked beef but not pork. How she loved finding the libraries and little bookstores in villages when she could, even though she'd never buy anything. How she loved the smell of books and couldn't resist bringing the pages to her face as she read.

Sakura also felt healthier than she had in months. After only a day being so close to her soulmate, almost all of her previous sickness was gone. Just _gone_. It didn't make sense to her, how something like an invisible bond could make or break a person like this.

After almost two weeks of traveling to some destination Sakura never asked about, they ran into Kisame and Itachi. She may or may not have nearly shattered Kisame's arm when he'd reached out to hug her.

"Squirt!" Kisame huffed, holding his right arm casually with his left. She could tell he was trying to not look like he was in pain. "Good to see ya!"

"Haruno-san," Itachi greeted calmly, a safe distance away from her. Or maybe him from her.

She nodded in his direction and felt Sasori move a step closer to her. It said something to her that he hadn't immediately attacked Kisame when he'd moved to touch her. There was a level of trust there she didn't quite understand yet.

But Itachi was something different.

"Finally caught up with puppet-boy, did ya?" Kisame asked, baring his shark-like teeth at her. She felt a shiver go up her spine at the sight.

"You're not wearing your Leaf headband," Itachi said. It wasn't a question, and so Sakura did not reply as if it was.

She turned to Kisame. "Better me coming to him than him sneaking into the Leaf village."

He grunted and rubbed his arm, which Sakura had reached for and started to send healing chakra through. He watched her with something like fascination on his face. Or maybe he was just hungry.

"Gone rogue, squirt?"

She snorted. "Not on your life. I'm just on a side mission. Of sorts."

Itachi was watching her. "Hn."

Sakura muttered something low enough so only Kisame and Sasori could hear about damn family habits.

"How is my foolish little brother, Haruno-san?" Itachi asked.

She shrugged one shoulder, not looking at him and grazing her fingertips over Kisame's blue skin, searching out the last fissures in his bone. "Last I saw him, he was in a sealed cell. Naruto's not likely to let him out of his sight now that he's back in Leaf territory."

"I am surprised you did not stay to watch over him."

She looked up at him, caught his eyes. "Sasuke Uchiha does not get to be my first priority any longer."

Itachi's eyelashes lowered as he looked at her.

* * *

Months passed, and Sakura found herself falling into a routine with the Akatsuki. She stayed with Sasori and Deidara, and sometimes Itachi and Kisame would join them for a week or so before going their separate ways.

She loved to banter with Kisame, and there had been a new kind of respect between them ever since she'd by chance picked up his sword during a particularly brutal fight against Mist shinobi. It had just been her and Kisame, and Sakura had come to terms with herself that sometimes she was going to have to fight side-by-side with them. Especially when she recognized a few of the Mist shinobi from her Bingo Book, and if even half of the things her book told her about these shinobi were true, then by fighting with the Akatsuki she considered it as picking the lesser of the evils.

There had been too many Mist shinobi, and both Kisame and Sakura had their limits. Kisame had been trapped by more than a dozen Mist shinobi, and they'd obviously known who Kisame was and his weaknesses—possibly the result of Mist being the village Kisame had defected from—and had brutally shattered both of his arms.

The Mist shinobi had seen her as the weaker link and didn't see her edging her way to where his sword had fallen before it was too late. And then it was in her hands and she was fighting her way through the Mist shinobi and to Kisame. Something unreadable had crossed his face when he'd seen her with his sword, stabbing and not cutting.

Afterwards, when both she and Kisame were covered in blood and water and mud, she'd sat down to heal his arms and the worst of his internal injuries. She'd handed him back his sword. He'd just looked at her with his tiny eyes and frowned thoughtfully. Or maybe he was just hungry—it was hard to say which.

When Sasori and Itachi had found them, fire in Sasori's eyes as he looked around at the dozens of dead Mist shinobi at their feet and Sakura and Kisame laughing heartfully about something, neither had really known what to make of it.

She'd started training with Kisame after that. Sakura preferred her fists over weapons, but Kisame trained her with his sword.

"Should I ever die, squirt," he'd say gruffly, "Samehada's already chosen you for a new host."

Sakura never quite knew what to make of that, since for her to take his sword she'd need to be there when he died. And she wasn't sure if he was expecting her to be on his side when he died or to be the one killing him. She tried not to think too much about it.

She also tried not to think about the time Kisame had jokingly started to talk to her about how obviously Sasori adored her.

It wasn't that she didn't notice his looks or his touches, both possessive and reassuring, like he was still waiting for her to disappear when he wasn't looking. But Kisame took it to another level.

"Squirt," Kisame had once laughed when she'd said she and Sasori were still trying to figure things out between them. "If you said you were cold, puppet-boy would burn down the world to make you warm again."

* * *

The first time Sakura ever got truly injured was nearly three months after she first started traveling with them. Before, she'd always be the one to heal whoever got injured. It was simply part of her nature. Even Kisame and Itachi would seek her out when they were gone for their own missions and would get injured.

But the day she got fatally injured, it had been raining. Pouring, really. Buckets and buckets of water, something Sakura, having grown up in the Land of Fire, wasn't all that used to. It was also the day she'd realized she was truly and honestly screwed.

It was a stupid accident. They'd stopped at a little village off the map to take shelter in when a team of Suna anbu had gotten the drop on them. Or, more specifically, on Sasori and Deidara.

It had been obvious that their primary goal in whatever mission they'd been given hadn't been to find and kill Akatsuki members, but that they'd just so happened to stumble upon two known members. They couldn't give up a chance like this.

So they attacked, and Sakura tried to stay out of it. It was obvious the Suna anbu members hadn't been tailing them for long, since none seemed to look out for a third, female member. She'd simply come back to the Inn they'd checked into with some food and found Deidara and Sasori against at least six Suna anbu members.

Suna. The village Konoha was the closest too. The village Sakura had protected as if it were her own. The village she had a personal friendship with its leader and his siblings. The village Deidara and Sasori had infiltrated to kidnap and kill its Kazekage. The village that had almost _lost_ its Kazekage.

And, Kami help her, she'd hesitated.

When Sakura had just started out at the academy as a child with a too big forehead and tears in her eyes, the first lesson she'd ever learned had been how to not die.

There were many ways to accomplish this, many of which she'd learn as she got older and became stronger. Becoming stronger was a good way not to die. Being brave was another way. Being wise was an even better way.

But it's difficult to teach an eleven-year-old how to be wise, so the very first lesson had been on how to not hesitate. Even if you weren't sure of the correct response to a threat, hesitating was always worse than responding incorrectly. Hesitating took away the chance to fix any mistake, because you'd already be dead. There were no comebacks from being dead.

And that was the memory Sakura had in her mind, of Iruka talking in front of a classroom full of rowdy kids that may or may not live to see their twenties about the importance of not hesitating. That was the memory she kept in her mind as she watched Sasori turn to look at her—stupid, stupid puppet-boy—and for a Suna anbu member to see their opening.

And, Kami help her, Sakura knew—fucking _knew_ —Sasori was pretty much immortal and unkillable, but that didn't stop her body from reacting. It took her by surprise how violently her body screamed at her when she saw the sword swing towards Sasori, how all she could hear was Deidara's maniacal laughter in the background, somewhere far off. Her feet were moving before her mind could catch up.

 _This_ was what she'd been taught. Iruka would be proud of her, Sakura thought. Her body knew not to hesitate, even when not hesitating meant making the wrong decision, because she might still be able to fix her mistake later. Hesitating meant death, and her body knew that even as it swung itself to meet the anbu's sword.

Things happened quickly after that. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Sakura could still hear Iruka's voice as she punched straight through the anbu's chest cavity.

 _Remember, guys,_ Iruka had once said, _being a shinobi isn't about honor or glory; it's about right from wrong and deciding which is which. Sometimes you might not know which, but you've already made your decision by becoming shinobi for the Leaf village, and so all you need to know, ultimately, is that evil is what desires to harm your village._

Sakura remembered cutting down Suna anbu members and not letting herself hesitate any longer. She couldn't let herself think anymore about right from wrong or she'd hesitate. She remembered standing amongst the dead anbu members, with their masks still firmly in place, as Deidara called out her name in something that might have resembled panic. She didn't, however, remember the pain until Sasori was in her face, calling her name.

She didn't scream. Sakura thought that she might have whimpered, once, when Sasori reached out to touch her arm, but that might have been more of a protest when she felt the needle pierce her skin.

* * *

When she woke up, it was still dark outside. Her internal clock was telling her that only a few hours had passed, and that it might be early morning. She was lying on a makeshift bed.

Sasori was sitting next to her, of course. Staring at her with a blank expression. She wondered what she would have to do to get a concerned expression from his face.

"Hi," she murmured, swallowing thickly.

He didn't respond.

Sakura pushed herself up on her elbows, looked down at her abdomen where she remembered a sword sticking out of her. It was gone, and she had faint memories of pulling it out herself before Sasori had knocked her out.

"Déjà vu," she muttered, lifting her hand to lift up her shirt, seeing only pale skin and a few mismatching scars from battles long past, including the scar from where her soulmate had impaled her.

She felt okay. Better than okay, considering what had happened, but she'd trained her body long ago to heal itself even when she was unconscious.

She looked up through her lashes to see her soulmate. She didn't see any blood flowing out of him, but thought that maybe the injury hadn't been bad enough for that to happen. Or maybe he'd cleaned himself up before she awoke.

Sasori was still staring at her, and Sakura finally bit her lip and scowled. "What? I'm fine."

"You had a sword thrust through your chest," Sasori said calmly, oh-so calmly. "You are not _fine_."

"Excuse _you_." Sakura bristled. "But remember the last time I was impaled? Yeah, because it was from you and I still lived. So, yes, I'm _fine_."

Maybe it wasn't fair of her to be so snappy with him, when it was obvious she'd given him quite a scare, but she just couldn't help herself. She was a shinobi. She was the Hokage's apprentice. She'd come very, very close to killing Sasori, the Red Scorpion, the immortal, the unkillable. One injury was not enough for him to get tisky with her.

"You could have died—"

"The operative word here is ' _could_.' I didn't. And I'll have you remember that I've sustained much worse injuries and still lived—"

"But not for me."

It was said so quietly that Sakura immediately stopped talking. She wasn't even sure at first if he'd really said it. It was much more potent than if he had yelled it, and Sakura felt something deep inside her clench.

She swallowed. "The soulmate bond dictates—"

" _Fuck_ the soulmate bond," Sasori growled, his lips peeling back from his teeth. "I watched you take a sword through the gut for me today and never have I felt so damn helpless in my _life_."

Sakura blinked rapidly, her hands clenching and unclenching as she tried to figure out if she should be mad or offended or just plain pleased at how much Sasori seemed to care.

"I won't apologize," she finally said, softly. She continued when she saw him about to say something. "I _won't_. This is how the soulmate bond works. Our first instinct is to protect our other half, so yes, this does mean jumping in front of a sword. I know that you'd do the exact same thing for me—"

"I'm immortal—"

"You are. And it's hard as hell to kill me with any injury, as I'm sure you remember from our fight in that cave. What were you thinking was going to happen with us being together like this? I refuse to stay in a gilded cage for you and I would never ask for you to do the same."

And then Sasori was in her face, hands on the ground on both sides of her, hovering over her with something like panic etched into the lines of his face. "You shouldn't have jumped in front of me like that," he whispered. "If I have to tie you up somewhere safe—"

" _Don't_ ," Sakura snarled. "You're too smart to make a threat like that and think I wouldn't hate you for it, soulmate bond be damned."

"Then let me make you immortal," Sasori purred, and Sakura realized that _this_ was when he was at his most dangerous. Not when he was arguing with her or glaring at enemies. It was when he put to use the many years of getting his way. Of when he curved his lips and tilted his head like this was the most interesting conversation he'd had in years.

Sakura breathed deep. "No."

"No?"

"We've had this conversation before."

"Not with you underneath me."

Sakura breathed deep. Again. "You're trying to manipulate me."

He leaned down to lightly rub his nose against her cheek. She could feel his breath against her neck, tickling her. "Is it working?"

She snorted. She tried to ignore how her hands were curling into the sheets underneath her instead of curling into the back of his shirt. She really shouldn't feel so safe with the man who was trying to make her into a puppet.

"It wouldn't hurt," Sasori cajoled, still rubbing his nose along her cheek, down to her throat. Her breath hitched. "It would be like going to sleep and then waking up . . . better. Stronger."

Sakura harrumphed. "You're an incessant nag."

"I could have just done it already," he said, and Sakura froze. "When I put you to sleep, I could have just kept you asleep and done it then. Had you wake up in my arms, good as new. Told you that your body wasn't healing on its own and that it was the only way."

"I'd never have believed you."

"You would have." His voice was so sure, without one inkling of smugness that Sakura almost did believe him. "Maybe not right away—you're far to hesitant for that. But eventually you would have."

What frightened Sakura the most wasn't the way Sasori spoke of making her into a puppet, into something other, but it was that she knew he was right. A shiver passed through her at that thought, and Sasori was suddenly putting more of his weight on her, holding her place even more tightly.

"I've been alive for a long time, doll-face," he went on. "I could wait for you to forgive me. I would work for it, for sure, but that's no hardship for me. With my name carved onto your bone and the blood of our enemies on my hands, I could wait for you to forgive me." One hand came up and skimmed over her cheekbone as she felt him settle between her legs. It wasn't arousing, but calming. Soothing. Her body's natural reaction to having him so close, even with the blanket and clothes between them. Something in her wondered about his use of 'our enemies' and not her own enemies.

And because Sakura didn't trust herself, she whispered, "Get off me," and he did.

But he didn't go far. Sasori leaned back, a foot of space between them as he watched her with gold in his eyes. If he'd looked smug, it would have been easier for Sakura to conjure up some kind of anger at his words, but all her soulmate looked was calm and sure of himself.

Sakura swallowed, and Sasori handed her a glass of water. She took her time drinking it, and then said, "How about a bargain?"

Sasori tilted his head, the beginning of a smile on his face. "A bargain?"

She nodded. "If I'm ever at that point of death and you have reasonable proof that I might not make it . . . you can make me immortal."

Something in his gaze flared at that. "Define 'reasonable proof.'"

She narrowed her eyes. "Remember what I said about trust?" He nodded. "Well, consider this your first test. You've already seen that I'll die for you, but would you stop yourself for me?"

Sakura watched the movement in Sasori's throat as he swallowed thickly. "I won't put your life at risk, doll-face."

"All I want is for you to have reasonable proof that I'll die if you don't make me immortal right then. Because while you're right that one day I would forgive you for making me immortal against my wishes, you should know that the trust would never be there between us. I might love you, but I'd _never_ trust you."

Sakura was pretty sure Sasori wasn't breathing; he was so still. Wasn't even blinking.

Finally, after what had to be a full minute of staring, Sasori let out a slow breath. "Alright, doll-face," he whispered. "Alright. You have a deal." And then he was moving faster than she could see and was kissing her.

It was harsh. Not quite rough, but this kiss was made up of desperation and longing. Sakura felt like this was how they were always going to seal deals: with a mixture of longing and hatred and something a little like love. Both of them were unyielding and frustrating and unfair and stubborn. Neither would ever concede unless a bargain was struck, and somehow Sakura was okay with that.

Because the second she'd woken up to see Sasori looking down at her with that unreadable face, she made a choice. She'd killed Suna anbu for him, had taken a sword through the abdomen for him, and knew he'd burn the world down around her if it meant keeping her safe.

And, Kami help her, she'd do the same for him.

If this was what love was, Sakura thought, it was a lot like being burned alive.

* * *

Back before Sakura was injured, back before she was impaled a second time through the gut in the presence of her soulmate—the first by his hand, the second for his sake—she, Sasori, and Deidara had stopped at a village far to the east.

It was small by village standards. Not even half the size of the Hidden Leaf, but what it lacked in size it made up in culture. It was said to be one of the oldest villages still around, having been founded and governed long before Madara Uchiha and Hashirama Senju signed the treaty that would begin the foundation for one of the most powerful villages in all the lands.

It was known for its art, oddly enough. Sakura had internally groaned when she'd realized this, having been stuck with two very different artists and having been subjugated to one too many arguments about "true art."

To enter the palace that held all the ancient art, it was an unsaid rule that patrons must dress the part. Ladies would wear their finest kimonos and skirts, men would wear their brightly colored dress robes and vests.

Deidara had worn bright blue robes, tied at the middle with a silver belt. Sasori wore dark maroon robes. And Sakura went for a more modern look with simply a nice red vest with sleeves down to her elbows and a skirt to match. Little bells hung on the ends of it, but she was good enough to not make them chime when she walked unless she wanted to.

Sasori stared. He always stared, but this was different. He'd been the one to gather her hair up off her neck—it had grown past her shoulders by then—and tie it into a loose bun.

When they'd entered the art museum, Deidara had wandered off almost immediately to find the sculpture section. Sakura and Sasori had traveled up the floors, wandering through the sections. She'd been amazed at how artists had managed to infuse art with chakra, keeping silver balls afloat in one of the larger rooms; molding a small waterfall into different plays, the characters and scenes moving and dancing about on top; an unnaturally dark room with nothing but floating lights in it and mirrors on the walls, so that no matter how far you traveled through it, it looked as if the room went on forever.

Halfway through the museum, Sakura had looked back at Sasori to say something, but instead of finding him looking at the art around them, she found him staring at her.

She'd huffed at him, but had been mostly amused. "I know you're picky to all hell about what classifies as 'art,' but there's got to be something in here that peaks your interest." Really, it was almost a sin not to notice the beauty around them.

Sasori had chuckled and taken the last few steps between them to finger a strand of her hair that had fallen loose from the low bun. "Now, doll-face," he'd purred. "You should know by now that I have nothing I want to look at but you, even in a place of so-called art."

She'd swallowed thickly and fought down the blush. "So cheesy."

He'd leaned down until there was only a whisper of space between them. He whispered, "One day, I'm going to lay you down on black, silk sheets and draw you as you sleep. I'll draw the contrast of your hair, of the small pink freckles that dot your shoulders and nose. And then I'm going to wake you slowly, with my mouth on your skin and your moans in my ears."

Her mouth had gone dry, but still she rolled her eyes, huffed like she was exasperated with his moods, and continued through the art museum. They didn't talk again until Deidara found them.

But it said something to Sakura, that in a place full of priceless art, all her soulmate could stare at was her.

* * *

Author's Note: Aannndddd I'm done with my finals, guys! Yay! I hope ya'll liked this chapter 'cause I pretty much wrote it in one sitting. I needed to just freaking write something that wasn't science/cancer based for the first time since this last semester began. It was a very painful semester, but hopefully this next one will be better (last semester of college, yay!).

The response I've been getting to this story is amazing, guys. I don't think any of my stories have gotten this popular, this quickly. I don't know if it's because it's a soulmate story or because it's about SakuraxSasori or what, but I'm incredibly grateful for all the support. Every time I see a new comment I just want to keep on writing for you guys. Thank you so much. Please continue to tell me what you want to see happen in the future.

Please **REVIEW!** As always, it makes me write faster~


	9. Chapter 9

Standard disclaimer applies.

* * *

Two months after she was injured, Sakura left.

She told Sasori she was leaving. She wasn't going to sneak out in the dead of night to avoid that, just because (1) she was pretty sure Sasori never slept and would hear her leaving and (2) she didn't want to part like that.

He tried to keep her with him, of course. Sakura had been prepared for that. He cajoled, subtly pleaded, and tried to manipulate her into staying with him and Deidara. _With him_ , was what he really meant. Just him, forever and ever.

But she couldn't. And he knew that she wouldn't have brought it up without having already made up her mind, and there was nothing left for him to do. She didn't change her mind once it was made—something they had in common.

Sakura was leaving partly because she knew Sasori and Deidara had been ordered to pick up the slack and go after the tailed beast hosts and stop touring the countryside with her—she'd been subtly told after a few months of traveling with them that their leader knew of her and simply didn't care all that much, something Sakura was a little insulted about—and she knew she wouldn't be able to sit idly by as they collected jinchuuriki like novelty items.

It was also partly because war was getting closer and closer. There were only a few jinchuuriki left for the Akatsuki to hunt before they came after Naruto, and she couldn't be around them when that happened.

Even Deidara tried to get her to stay with them. But ultimately even he knew what side she was going to be on when war came around.

Sasori gifted her with one last wooden creature before she left. This time, it was a slug. One of Tsunade's slugs, painted blue and white and so lifelike Sakura could understand how Sasori had gifted himself with an almost human body. It positively thrummed with life, and Sakura wondered if it had been weaved with some of Deidara's clay.

Their bargain with each other went unsaid, even as she turned her back to him and left for the Hidden Leaf Village.

* * *

About two days later, Sakura ran into a man in a boy's body.

He was waiting for her atop a tree, sitting down on one of the thicker branches and swinging one leg back and forth. His masked face was tilted back and he was humming something tunelessly. He was wearing the Akatsuki robe.

Somehow, Sakura knew who he was immediately. It tipped her off instantly that he was more than a little powerful, what with how he was able to sneak up on her like that. She hadn't even felt an inkling of a chakra signature, and even seeing him sit in front of her like this, there was nothing in the air to alert her to him. But even without it, something . . . dark was radiating off him, like a curse. Like an unattainable _want_ , sucking up everything in its path.

"Hello," Sakura greeted, keeping a good tree length away. Her hands were carefully kept to her sides.

"Hi there, Sakura-chan!" the man in a boy's body yelled in a childish voice. He stood up quicker than Sakura's eyes could follow and waved an arm in the air.

It didn't surprise her that he knew her name—Sakura would have guessed that every member of the Akatsuki knew who she was by then. Finding a soulmate was already rare enough, but having a puppet-boy find his was that much odder.

"Would you happen to be Tobi?" Sakura asked, thankful when the man-boy didn't make a move to come closer to her.

He gasped dramatically. "Sakura-chan knows Tobi-kun's name!" He flailed around some more.

Sakura was impressed. He somehow could make her feel even more hesitant and alert when he acted so immature and childish than his menacing aura already did.

She gave him a small smile and forced her muscles to relax. "I know all the names of the Akatsuki members, Tobi-san."

"Tobi- _kun_ ," he corrected her. He giggled. (And there was something so innately _wrong_ about that.) "Sakura-chan sure does seem to know a lot!"

She wasn't sure if it was a threat or a warning.

Sakura tilted her head to the side and kept the smile on her face. "Did you need me for something, Tobi-kun?"

He flapped his hand up and down and shook his head. "Oh, no no no. Tobi-kun just wanted to meet the pretty flower-chan everyone is so worked up about."

"Ah," Sakura said. She caught a flash of red from the hole in his mask, and suddenly things began to make sense.

She swallowed and opened her mouth, but Tobi was already talking quickly.

"Well, Tobi-kun just wanted to say hello! I know Sakura-chan is headed back to her village." He tilted his masked face at her, and a shiver went up her spine. "Tobi-kun is sure we'll see Sakura-chan again soon." She was pretty sure this time it was both a warning and a threat.

Sakura waited until his back turned, ready to jump from the tree to say, hesitantly, "My sensei would look forward to meeting you again, as well."

He froze. Then his head turned to look back over his shoulder at her. Sakura's hand instinctively flinched over her kunai pouch.

But when he spoke, it was still in that childish voice, excited and innocent. "Tobi-kun would be _honored_ to meet the great Tsunade-sama!" And then he was gone.

Sakura waited there for a good fifteen minutes after he was gone, her hand over her weapons pouch and her chakra reaching out for any dangers. Her heart was pounding a steady rhythm in her ears.

Finally, _finally_ she relaxed enough to whisper, "That's not the sensei I was referring to."

* * *

The thing about secrets was that it wasn't always better to know them.

Being the Hokage's apprentice meant more than just learning from Tsunade, from working double and triple shifts at the hospital and being invaluable to the village. It also meant high security clearance. It meant having to be privy to many things the Hokage was privy to, because if something ever happened to Tsunade, either Sakura or Shizune would be the one to step in until the elders could choose another Hokage.

Sometimes this meant sitting in on meetings that were guarded by a dozen anbu. Sometimes this meant going through forbidden scrolls hidden away in the most protected rooms of Konoha. Sometimes this meant going through recordings of old meetings between the elders and clan heads or clan about-to-be-heads. Sometimes this meant reading previous Hokages' notes and journals about decisions that had to be made and laws that needed to be passed. The old and untouched confessions of long dead leaders.

Sakura kept all kinds of secrets. And sometimes those secrets came back to haunt her.

* * *

When Sakura was still a child with a too big forehead and no friends, Ino Yamanaka found her and made the unanimous decision to be best friends with her.

Sakura wasn't sure why, but she was too relieved to finally, _finally_ have a friend to call her own to care. So she didn't notice when Ino started to pay more attention to the other girls their age and only came back to Sakura when it suited her. She didn't notice when rumors started spreading—sometimes about her too large forehead and sometimes about how weak she was—and Ino was never around for her.

Ino would stand up for her when they were together, of course. She would stand in front of Sakura and demand the other kids to shut up and leave her alone. But Sakura ignored it, at the beginning, when she'd catch Ino talking in hushed voices with those same kids—those same heartless little girls—and only stop when Sakura came close enough to hear them. They giggled when that happened, those stupid girls and Ino, and it was the single most horrible sound Sakura had ever heard.

Kids, Sakura knew, could be crueler then even the most bloodthirsty of shinobi.

She put up with it for a long time. She learned to become part of the crowd, to gossip and talk in hushed voices about other little girls and boys. Boys like Naruto. They'd whisper and giggle and Sakura made herself believe it was fine, it was okay.

Until it wasn't.

Sasuke Uchiha was everything a prepubescent little girl could ask for. He was moody, always scowled, and had the overall look of a boy constantly constipated. He was the epitome of a perfect obsession just waiting to happen.

And Sakura _was_ obsessed. Not so much with Sasuke Uchiha—at least not after she had her first conversation with him that started with her _Hello_ and ended at his _Go away_ —but with the need to fit in. Little girls like her simply did not _not_ obsess over someone like Sasuke Uchiha. At least, not if they wanted to fit in.

But this didn't matter between Sakura Haruno and Ino Yamanaka, because by that point everything was a battle of wills. Who was the prettiest, who was the smartest, who was the fastest, who was the strongest, etc, etc, . . . The rest was just details.

Sasuke Uchiha was simply the next step in the hierarchy of little girls. Get him to pay an extra minute of attention to you, get him to speak to you without you speaking first, get him to just _look_ at you like you weren't something he'd scrapped off his shoe.

The emotional and mental ramifications were moot. If you wanted to be someone in the girl group, you played by the rules. Who made up the unsaid rules was never revealed, but if Sakura had ever known, she might have just killed them herself.

Things went downhill between Sakura and Ino after Sasuke Uchiha was added to the mix. Their friendship had already been walking on a tightrope before, but a moody little boy who perpetually scowled at the world was what broke it.

It was possibly the one thing Sakura was thankful to Sasuke for, though she'd die before she ever told him that. He broke their friendship unknowingly, uncaringly, but when Sakura and Ino faced each other to fight during the chunin exam, it forced them both mend it.

Sasuke Uchiha was a little shit and had been for some time. He broke people who cared about him with just a look and never stopped to think about the ramifications. It both amazed her and horrified her how easy it was for him. And that was the epiphany both Sakura and Ino had after the chunin exam.

They lost to each other. Sakura believed that had one of them actually won that brutal fight, they would have gone on passive aggressively hating each other. As girls were wont to do. But that's not what happened.

What happened was they beat the shit out of each other. And it was the best thing that ever happened to them.

Suddenly Sasuke Uchiha wasn't so appealing. Suddenly idiot boys weren't so appealing. Suddenly they were getting each other out of awkward situations with other girls and boys—they'd even pretended to be a couple during one mission in order to blend in.

Ino Yamanaka was Sakura Haruno's first kiss. She was the first person to give her confidence. She was all flowing blonde hair and scrapped knees and pink, sparkly lips. She was her rock, her everything, and Sakura loved her like she loved Naruto and Kakashi and Lady Tsunade. She'd kill for her. She'd die for her. And, most importantly, she'd keep secrets for her.

The day Sakura watched Ino's arm turn bright red when Shikamaru fell off a building while napping was the day they made a promise. Their own little secret. Because sometimes you just needed a girlfriend to keep secrets for you.

And, sometimes, you needed to keep secrets _from_ a girlfriend.

Sakura didn't go straight to the Hokage tower when she entered the village. Maybe she should have, but instead she found herself bypassing the shinobi check-in gate and snuck in through the way Sasori had told her about when he'd snuck in to see her. She'd have to tell Tsunade about that later.

But instead of doing what any reasonable, smart shinobi would do, Sakura snuck through the village gates rather easily and made her way to Ino Yamanaka's apartment that she shared with Shikamaru.

Sakura knew Shikamaru was gone on a long mission and that Ino would likely be home, usually done training by six at night. She would be eating dinner so long as she hadn't gone out with her teammates.

Years ago, both Ino and Sakura had make their security traps safe to each other's chakra signatures, so when Sakura snuck through the window to Ino's bedroom, nothing happened (such as being suspended by ropes and wires like two Akatsuki members).

Ino was at her vanity, brushing out her long blonde hair. When Sakura purposely stepped on a floorboard that creaked, she found a rather sharp hairpin coming at her face.

She ducked and heard its impact as it hit and stuck in the wall near her head. " _Kami_ , woman," she grumbled. "Were you aiming for my eye?"

Ino turned around, one hand on the chair underneath her, the other hand fingering her other sharp hairpins. One side of her mouth was curled up in amusement. "Just keeping you on your toes, forehead."

Sakura harrumphed and walked over to stand behind Ino. She plucked her hairbrush out of her hand and started to brush out her long, golden strands. She licked her lips. "I can't stay long."

"Ah." Ino narrowed her blue eyes at her in the mirror. "What's going on, forehead? You've been gone for months, and I can tell you haven't been to see Tsunade-sama yet."

She kept brushing out her hair. It was so fine and soft; Sakura was always so jealous of it. "How would you know that?"

Ino snorted. "You smell, darling. And you always go see Tsunade-sama when you get back from missions and then go straight to the bath house."

Sakura felt her lips twitch at that. "I'm not going to see Tsunade-sama. Not yet."

"I see."

"I need a favor."

Ino eyed her for a moment. "Are you going to tell me what it's for?"

"No."

"Will you _ever_ tell me what it's for?"

Sakura paused in brushing her hair. "Yes."

Ino sighed. "Will I regret it?"

Sakura breathed in the smell of Ino's shampoo and perfume. The bedroom was a little steamy still from her bath earlier. If she could only bottle _this_ —this pure Ino smell, this ambiance, she would. She'd burn down the world for something like this, to take out when she needed it. When she needed to remember after she'd had her hands elbow deep in blood and guts, when she couldn't quite remember who she was or what she was. (A monster, a loyal shinobi, a friend, a soulmate, a soulmate to a _monster_ —)

She breathed out slowly. "Maybe. I don't know."

"I love you, forehead."

Sakura ignored the very slight tremble in her hands as she continued brushing out Ino's hair, letting it flow from her fingers and trying— _trying so damn hard_ —to imprint this feeling into her memory.

"Love you too, pig."

* * *

Loving someone meant trusting them completely. And sometimes trusting someone completely was what killed them in the end.

* * *

Sakura snuck out the village gates early the next morning, having bathed in Ino's bathroom and after Ino had stuffed her pack full of food and supplies. Sakura, in return, had left almost all of Sasori's little wooden carvings at her apartment. Ino hadn't asked any questions when she'd opened her pack and seen all of them—nearly a dozen by then—sitting there.

She didn't go to see Kakashi and she didn't go to see Naruto. Not even Tsunade, though there was a moment when she was jumping from building to building that she could have sworn she'd caught a glimpse of blonde pigtails moving in the wind on top of the Hokage monument.

But she left the village as she'd entered it: unnoticed and silently.

She didn't risk a glance back.

* * *

War came.

Not even a month after leaving, Konoha was decimated. Pein—of all names, _Pein_? Really?—attacked. He came with a plan, but, of course, Naruto could always bypass even the most well placed of plans with his righteousness and unequivocal love for everything and everyone. Not even a creature like Pein could win against him.

Sakura wasn't there. She was making her way through Kirigakure. She tracked down a woman who reminded her a little too much of Tsunade. Sakura kept her Leaf headband tucked safely into her pack, but she had a feeling Mei knew more about her than she'd like.

She trained with her for a bit (after going through her damn bodyguards and proving her worth ten times over) and dropped tidbits of information about the oncoming war. She let Mei beat the absolute shit out of her, until she was nothing but broken bones and cuts and fractured ribs, and, in return, beat the shit out of Mei. She impressed her with her inhuman strength. She taught her medical team new types of healing techniques and made sure the Village Hidden in Mist was on its way to becoming one of the more advanced villages in terms of medical techniques and technology.

When hearing about the attack on Konoha, Mei watched Sakura out of the corner of her eye in the midst of their training session. Sakura blinked at the news and then landed a solid punch on Mei's cheekbone. There was a crunch. Mei laughed and attempted to burn Sakura alive in lava.

Months passed. Sakura helped write out new scrolls and war treaties for Mei to look over. Both stayed in her office while Mei hosted meetings with other village leaders and messengers. Sakura stayed in the background, hidden, pretending to be one of Mei's bodyguards.

Sakura decided she hated the Village Hidden in Mist. She'd never been a big fan of it, what with Konoha and Kirigakure not ever having the best of a relationship, but also because of Kisame. And the damn rain and—you guessed it—mist. It was there every. Single. Day. She could understand why Kisame went rogue.

Not to mention the children. Sakura had heard the stories about Kirigakure demanding the shinobi in training to kill each other to rise in rank, but after she'd witnessed a group of twelve through fifteen-year-olds strike down a kid that couldn't have been older than thirteen in the middle of the street, passersby not even so much as blinking, Sakura had a new appreciation for Konoha's chunin exam.

But that wasn't her fight. Mei didn't seem too concerned, but she'd also grown up this way. Once, when Sakura hesitantly brought it up, Mei had smiled thinly and told her she had to pick her battles in life, and that wasn't one of them. Not yet. Maybe not ever. Kirigakure wasn't like Konoha with its rich history and tales of honor and glory. Civilians and shinobi of the Village Hidden in Mist just tried to survive, and this was how they did it. Sakura didn't bring it up again, and the next time she witnesses a young boy being killed in the street, she walked on by.

Then one day a slug appeared on her shoulder when she was drinking tea in the room she'd rented out during her stay. With the slug came the message of the declaration of war.

It was one thing for a village like Konoha to be attacked and nearly destroyed by terrorists, but it was another to actually declare war. Somehow, Naruto had done it. He'd convinced the leaders that the threat was still alive even with the death of Pein.

Then a Mist anbu appeared at her door. Mei had summoned her.

Mei didn't smile when she saw her. Instead, she told the guards in her office to get out and, after a mere moment of hesitation, sealed the door behind them. Then Mei handed her a scroll.

"You've heard the news," Mei told her, leaning back in her chair.

"Yes."

"You are leaving?"

Sakura nodded, gripping the scroll tightly. She had a feeling about what it held.

"Pity. I was hoping to tell you the news myself." Mei grinned something more than a little feral. "The leaders of the Hidden Villages have enacted the war treaty. _Your_ war treaty."

Sakura closed her eyes and sent a prayer to Kami. "Oh?"

Mei threw her head back and laughed. "My dear girl, you're more devious then I could've imagined."

Sakura smiled.

"You've not only gotten your way, you've made the Village Hidden in Mist gain favor during the war council; the other Hidden Villages will not soon forget that Kirigakure was the one to bring forth such a fair treaty." Mei licked her lips and narrowed her eyes.

"I'm glad," Sakura said, meaning it.

"But what will your own village think of you, I wonder?" Mei mused, leaning forward on her desk and propping her chin on one hand. "They will view you as a traitor."

Sakura shrugged. "Perhaps."

Mei hummed thoughtfully. Then, slowly, the words a purr, she said, "You know, the Village Hidden in Mist will not soon forget your help. We are in your debt."

Sakura smiled something wide and unmarred. She bowed at the waist. "Thank you, Mizukage-sama." She paused thoughtfully.

Mei noticed and raised an eyebrow, her eyes gleaming in amusement. "Is there something we could _ever_ do to repay you?"

And Sakura knew that Mei had an inkling of what she was going to ask long before she asked it. She'd spent enough time in the woman's presence to understand exactly why she was the Mizukage, and it didn't just have to do with her strength as a shinobi.

"If it's not too much trouble," Sakura said in a careless tone, "please kill Danzo Shimura."

Mei grinned with too many teeth.

* * *

Danzo Shimura died a week later in a tragic accident that involved a rock slide and a boulder planting itself firmly atop his head. The crusted lava around his body was promptly ignored by all.

No one had ever really liked the man, after all.

* * *

Before Sakura left the Village Hidden in Mist, she wrote three letters. She summoned slugs to carry them for her.

One was to Ino. Another was to Gaara. And the last was to her redheaded soulmate.

Only two replied.

* * *

Her next stop was the Village Hidden in Sand. She thought she hadn't forgotten what the oppressive heat was like, but once she crossed into their territory, she remembered.

This time, Kankuro was the one to greet her at the gates. He was grinning widely and threw an arm around her shoulders before she'd even crossed the gate, weaving his way and pulling her along through the beginnings of a sandstorm. He went on about how it was a good thing she'd gotten there when she had, else Gaara would've had to go looking for her body later.

"Do you remember what you told me the last time I was here?" Sakura asked once they were seated in the siblings' home, the wind raging loudly outside. She'd already chugged down the three glasses of water Kankuro had handed her with amusement in his eyes, forgoing the fourth glass, not wanting to make herself sick.

"About puppets?" Kankuro nodded. Temari, she had been told, was out on a mission and Gaara was stuck in endless meetings about the oncoming war. "Yeah, of course. You had some . . . interesting questions."

She dug out the slug Sasori had carved for her. She cupped it in her palms, having done just that every night she'd been in Kirigakure, feeling it's smooth texture and the warmth inside. She breathed deeply and handed it to Kankuro, who frowned down at it.

Then surprise brightened his face. It was almost comical. Almost.

"That," Sakura began, a tremble to her voice, "is my soulmate's heart." She looked towards a window, watching the sand blow and rage against the glass. This was her soulmate's old home, the place he'd been born and raised and molded into the shinobi he was today. And if there were tears in her eyes, she refused to acknowledge it. "And I need you to make a promise to me."

 _In return for saving your life_ , was what went unsaid, because she and the sand siblings were on friendly terms, almost personal terms, and it was bad form to say something as blunt as that. _In return for saving your brother's life._

(Promises and secrets tended to go hand-in-hand, after all.)

Sakura swallowed thickly and sat up straighter, looked Kankuro in the eye as understanding crossed his face. She had expected disgust and anger, maybe. Horror. Not _this_ —not pity and understanding. Not sorrow.

 _You know what to do_ , was what also went unsaid.

* * *

Her third stop was Konoha.

It was chaos.

She'd tried to prepare herself for the destruction that had been cheered and toasted to in Kirigakure. But rumors where just that: rumors. No more, no less. How much was truth and how much was made up . . . well, it was hard to say which was which.

But from what she could see, the rumors had all been close to the truth. Reconstruction was underway, but seeing the gaping hole where her home used to be was still more a kick to her gut than she'd been expecting.

From Ino's letter, she knew everyone was safe. Naruto, of course, wasn't dead. Kakashi had almost died, but had pulled through in the end. Tsunade, though . . . her mentor was still recovering. Still in a coma.

And that was partially why Sakura was there. She made her way to the hospital—what was left of the hospital, anyway—easily enough. No one had stopped her, at least.

Danzo was dead and the elders were beside themselves. From what Sakura understood, they still refused to make Naruto standing Hokage while Tsunade was out of commission, and had instead appointed Shizune to hold the position until someone more permanent could take her place.

It took Sakura and Shizune a week to wake Tsunade. They slept in her hospital room and threatened that if anyone dared to tell a soul—especially the elders—what they were trying to do, they'd personally castrate the lot of them. And because they were both apprentices of Tsunade, they were taken quite seriously.

In the end, Tsunade did wake up. She woke up snarling and cursing to high heaven, tears streaming out of the corners of her eyes and staining the pillow beneath her head. She cursed Pein. She cursed Jiraiya, who was dead. She cursed the Akatsuki as a whole.

Together, Sakura and Shizune managed to keep Tsunade in bed for another two days to properly recover, but by the third she'd managed to sneak past them when they were both passed out, completely chakra exhausted. The elders were properly shocked and aghast when Tsunade barreled into their private war meeting, snarling and threatening them that if they ever refused to make Naruto Hokage again, she'd personally hand them all their shriveled old balls (and to the one woman, her "shriveled ovaries").

Sakura slept for two days after that, finally home.

* * *

She woke to bright blue eyes leaning over her.

Sakura groaned, but couldn't help the grin that spread over her face. "Hi, Naruto."

"Sakura-chan!" And then he was on top of her, holding her so tightly she was worried he'd crack a rib.

She grunted and he let up just the smallest bit. His questions jumbled out of his mouth, and it was so Naruto-like, she almost cried then and there.

"Where've you been, Sakura-chan!? The village was attacked and I was so scared—I mean, of _course_ I wasn't scared, not at all! I was brave and heroic and, _oh_ , you should have seen me and all my awesomeness. The village sees me as a hero, Sakura-chan!" He paused to draw in breath. "They want me as the next Hokage, Sakura-chan," he very nearly whispered, for as much as Naruto could ever whisper. "They finally see me."

Much later, Naruto was perched on her bed and was eating ramen noisily. He'd brought her some, and Sakura almost slurped it down as fast as Naruto.

Finally, he asked, "Where've you been, Sakura-chan?"

She swallowed a mouthful of ramen, lowering her chopsticks. "On a mission," she said, and, by Kami, she wanted to tell him everything so _badly_.

It was a testament to their loyalty and trust to each other that Naruto accepted it at face value. His bright blue eyes bore into her, and Sakura felt her eyes fill with moister, but blinked it away before it could become something more. There were too many secrets and broken promises between them.

"The teme's still here," Naruto said suddenly, after the silence between them had grown. Sakura froze. "He helped defeat Pein."

Her mouth went dry. She hadn't expected that. "And now?"

"Now . . . he's still here. In the village, I mean." Naruto laughed, almost sorrowfully. "I think he just didn't want someone like Pein to destroy the village before he could."

"Ah."

"His teammates showed up, too. But . . . they died. It was . . . odd," Naruto said. "How loyal they were to him, I mean. The teme's not exactly the easiest person to be loyal to."

Sakura blinked rapidly and felt her heartbeat pick up. "Is he just . . . wandering around the village?" Her body almost spasmed at the thought. Sasuke Uchiha loose in the village he'd left behind and made no secret of loathing while it was at its weakest. That was just _fantastic_ news.

"Hn."

Sakura's head whirled around at the too familiar noise that came from her open window. (What was so wrong with the door? It worked perfectly fine, thank you very much.) Sasuke Uchiha was sitting on her windowsill, head tilted back against the side of it and one leg hanging over the edge. His head wasn't turned towards her, but he was looking out of the corner of his eyes at her. His dark, dark eyes with a hint of red in them.

The first words out of her mouth were "Get off my window," and then, almost as an afterthought, "Fuck you."

(Oh, that felt good.)

Sasuke's left eye twitched, but he (surprisingly) did as she said and easily pulled himself the rest of the way into her home.

And then there was a rather high pitched squeal and the youngest living Uchiha member was hanging upside down from her ceiling, tied up with chakra enhanced wire that had immediately drained him of all strength and chakra.

His glare could have melted iron.

Sakura grinned as Naruto fell off the bed, laughing so loud the birds outside her window took flight, and then released the sleeping trap just like she had with Deidara.

She turned to Naruto, who was still laughing and wiping away the tears that had leaked out of his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket. "We're locking him up again," she said.

Naruto could only start laughing again.

* * *

Author's Note: Well, this was a quick update! Fun fact: I actually have this story completely finished. (You guys should be so proud of me.) These last few days I've done pretty much done nothing but write and write and write, and this story's been on my mind for a while now.

I'm actually super proud of this story now that I finished it. I kept going back and forth between a silly story or serious story. I think I've done a mix of both.

I don't know when I'll post the next chapter, but you guys should know that there are only two more chapters to this story, then it's done! Yay or nay? I don't even know.

Merry Christmas, guys!

Please **REVIEW** and tell me what you think is going to happen~ A lot happened in this chapter that will be the backbone of how this all ends. Can you guess it?


	10. Chapter 10

Standard disclaimer applies.

* * *

The next time Sakura saw Sasori, it was when Itachi and Sasuke decided to be their brooding selves and pick a fight for no reason whatsoever, except for the misconstrued and rather pointless "revenge" fantasy they had going on. Really, though.

Itachi, having unanimously decided that he and his foolish little brother were overdue for their fight to the death, showed up one day. She, Naruto, and the little shit known as Sasuke were out of Konoha territory on a rather pointless mission to deliver a scroll to a neighboring village. Well, technically _Sakura_ had been given the mission when Tsunade had begun to see her health decline and getting a little too twitchy, but Naruto and Sasuke had apparently decided to tag along.

Kisame wiggled his fingers at her from across the field the brooding Uchiha brothers had chosen for their battle of scowls and smirks. She waved back. Naruto looked from Kisame to her and back a few times, his mouth opening and closing before practically yelling in her ear, "WHO'S THE FISH, SAKURA-CHAN!?"

Kisame looked offended.

When Sasori and Deidara showed up rather dramatically on a clay bird that then exploded in the air, Naruto was beginning to look a tad worried and Sakura was wondering if this was the day she was going to have to fight them.

Deidara, not caring in the least about the two brooding Uchihas and the rather flustered Naruto next to her, sauntered right up to her and threw an arm around her shoulders. "Sakura-chan! What're you doing outside the Leaf village, yeah?"

"Mission," she said, glumly.

Deidara blinked down at her with his one visible blue eye, his face split with a shit eating grin. "You weren't in Konoha for Pein's attack, were you, yeah?"

"No." She narrowed her eyes at him. "Why weren't _you_?"

Something in his face closed off. "We're not that stupid, yeah."

"But you're still trying to capture the jinchuurikis."

A rather large fireball came barreling their way, and Naruto, Deidara, and Sakura jumped out of the way. She eyed the burnt path from where it had moved with distaste. "Why does it always have to be _fire_?" she muttered.

There was a nose in her hair, then, and an arm wound around her waist. Sakura turned and pressed her face into the gap between Sasori's chin and chest. She heard a purr deep in his throat at that, and Sakura breathed in his scent: sandalwood and forest.

Naruto made a gagging sound behind her.

"I've waited for this moment for a long time, Itachi," Sasuke muttered very seriously. Sakura was pretty sure the bottom of his shirt was burnt.

Sakura made a gagging sound. She cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled, "You're full of shit, Uchiha!" Deidara laughed loudly. Which Uchiha in question she was referring to was still up for debate.

Itachi blinked very, very slowly. "Foolish little brother."

"Oh, come _on_!" Sakura yelled. "Stop with the 'foolish little brother' act and just kiss and make up already!"

Both Uchiha brothers turned to look at her, both with varying degrees of looks of insult on their faces.

Sasori chuckled into her ear. A shiver went up her spine. "Careful, doll-face," he mock-whispered in her ear. "If you ruin their droll atmosphere, they might simultaneously combust."

Sakura hummed thoughtfully. "Naw. They're both too in love with themselves to let that happen."

"Shut _up_ , Sakura—"

"Haruno-san—"

It was Kisame who appeared behind Sasuke and wacked him upside the head. Sasuke squawked indignantly and lifted a hand to cradle the back of his head. Sakura was pretty sure he was just checking to see if his hair was messed up.

"Can it, Uchiha brat."

Itachi was not deterred. He blinked slowly at her. "Do not comment on things you do not understand, Haruno-san—"

"Oh, for _fuck's_ sake." Oddly enough, it was Naruto who said it. Sakura looked at him in surprise. "We know about the stupid elders and what Danzo did to you."

Itachi froze.

Sakura narrowed her eyes at him. "Naruto—"

"You're not the only one to read the hidden scrolls, Sakura-chan."

Sakura paused, then slowly let a smile spread across her face. "Of course not." She let how proud she was leak into her voice.

The thing about protected, hidden scrolls was that when the village keeping them protected and hidden was destroyed, that tended to lead to disarray and sneaky little shinobi finding out information. And the boy who was destined to become Hokage—the boy the village as a whole seemed to want as the next Hokage—was no exception. It was only the blasted elders who didn't want him in that position of power.

Sasuke was glaring at Itachi. "What—"

"It is irrelevant—"

Sakura made a disgusted noise in her throat, but it was Naruto was spoke first. "What did you think was going to happen, Itachi?" He didn't yell it, didn't even make it sound particularly angry. "What did you think was going to happen when Sasuke-teme killed you and finally found out that you're not the heartless, betraying bastard he's believed you were all this time? How did you think he was going to react to having his world shifted not once, but _twice_ by the older brother he'd idolized as a child?"

And Itachi looked so, so tired that Sakura felt her heart break a little. "You are not supposed to know this, Uzumaki-san."

"Itachi—?"

Itachi's head swiveling to look at Sasuke, who was clenching and unclenching his fists. His chest heaved. His eyes were a bright, twisting red. "What're they saying, Itachi?"

"Little brother—"

"What are they _fucking_ saying, nii-san!?"

Kisame shuffled uneasily next to her. Sakura looked at him out of the corner of her eye and saw him staring blankly at Itachi.

Feeling her gaze, he tilted his head to look at her, then bobbed his head to the right. Sakura sighed and pulled out of Sasori's grip to grab Naruto's arm before dragging him away from the clearing and the two rather emotional Uchiha brothers.

Sasori and Deidara, of course, followed. She didn't think Itachi and Sasuke even noticed them departing, so engrossed with each other as they were. Sakura looked back one last time to see Sasuke's face twisted with unrestrained disgust and horror. He wasn't a stupid man, Sakura knew, and she could see his black eyes turning red as realization struck. Itachi just looked tired, and he turned his head at one point to cough into his open palm.

She heard Kisame mutter near her, "Soulmates aren't the only ones with the ability to destroy us."

No, Sakura thought. Secrets and promises could do that all on their own.

And then, a few steps behind Sakura, she heard Deidara mutter, "What the _hell_ are you all talking about, yeah?"

* * *

Naruto, apparently, was a little sneaky sneak who had been rifling through the secret archives for months.

"You left, Sakura-chan," he mumbled, rubbing the back of his head and looking sheepish. "No one was there to look into files and scrolls for the old hag, and she wanted to start training me for Hokage early."

But it was more than that, Sakura could tell, and after a little bit of probing, Naruto finally said, "You left me with the teme for company." He looked frustrated and embarrassed. "And nothing made sense! Sasuke started telling me more about his childhood as a way to hurt me about my lack of one, and things didn't add up. So I did some digging, and I broke into the old Uchiha archives and found the recordings from the fourth Hokage and the elders . . . and what ultimatum they gave Itachi."

And then Naruto got angry. Truly, unapologetically angry at the injustice of a teenage Itachi who'd been given a choice between being loyal to his village and being loyal to his clan. And then after a few minutes of ranting and raving, Naruto slowly calmed down, ultimately understanding the reason behind such a decision. How Itachi was a loyal shinobi of the Hidden Leaf Village. How Danzo was at fault. How the fourth Hokage just tried to make a right choice in a very bad situation.

"He was planning to let Sasuke-teme kill him!" Naruto bellowed.

"He's sick," Kisame said.

Naruto turned to look at him. "No kidding!"

"No." Kisame shook his head. "I mean that he's been coughing up blood for months now."

They all froze at this so freely given information. To know another shinobi's weakness like this was . . . To have it offered up from his partner, when he had no guarantee one of them wouldn't use it against him. Deidara, Sakura knew, still had less than friendly feelings for either Uchiha brother.

"He's dying," Kisame said unemotionally. And after having seen and lived in the Mist village for months, Sakura now understood why. "Might as well let the kid have his revenge."

"He told you this, yeah?" Deidara asked.

Kisame snorted. "He didn't have to; you can only hide coughing up blood for so long from someone you spend every day with."

"How long has this been going on?" Sakura asked, her mind whirling.

Kisame shrugged. "A few months, maybe."

"How often?"

Kisame eyed her. "At first it was just every few days, now it's at least three times a day. It's worse right after a fight. Why?"

Sakura didn't answer, just took off her pack and started rifling through the bottles she had stored there. She felt Sasori watching her with interest as she swirled some different colored liquids together.

"You're not going to save him, are you, yeah?" Deidara asked, incredulous. "He's an Akatsuki member!"

"So are you," Sakura nonchalantly reminded him. "And I healed you more than once, didn't I?"

"You _what_?" Naruto yelled.

"Itachi," Sakura began, ignoring Naruto for the moment, "has maybe made the biggest sacrifice for his village I've ever heard of. It's one thing to die for your village and become a hero; it's another to live and become the villain."

"He still captured and killed jinchuurikis, doll-face," Sasori reminded her, watching her with a peculiar look on his face.

"So have you."

"But I'm your soulmate."

Sakura finished swirling the bottle of amber colored liquid, watching it foam near the top and give off a sour smell. "Are you really trying to convince me to not even try to help Itachi? _Really_? Do you even know me?"  
Sasori caught her arm as she stood up, hitching her pack back around her shoulder. She turned to give him a withering glare.

"I'm helping him," she said in a tone that brokered no argument.

"Squirt, I'm not sure there _is_ any helping him now," Kisame said.

"Let me be the judge of that."

* * *

When they all went back to the field the two remaining Uchiha brothers had been left in, no one was there. There was no sign of a battle having took place either, sans the burnt remains of the one fireball Itachi had thrown Sasuke's way before Itachi's little secret had come to light.

Sakura wasn't sure they'd see them again.

* * *

"Are you going to tell me about Tobi?"

Sakura had convinced Naruto to go back to the village and alert Tsunade to what had happened, and that Sasuke now knew why the Uchiha clan had actually been murdered. While neither Sakura or Naruto had given Sasuke any real details to what went on when Itachi was a teenager and Danzo was still alive, Itachi might've.

Or he might've handed Sasuke some more cleverly wrought lies, nicely packaged and giftwrapped for his little brother's trip to insanity.

Kisame had left to go looking for his partner, and he'd dragged Deidara along with him (though rather unwillingly). This left Sakura to finish the pointless mission she'd been given, and of course Sasori tagged along.

Sasori's steps did not falter at her words. "What about him?"

"He's not stupid."

"No."

"Or weak."

"Just ask your question, doll-face."

Sakura stopped walking, and Sasori paused a few paces ahead to look over his shoulder at her. She stared, and he sighed and turned to close the distance between them.

"You already know the answers to your questions, doll-face. You don't need me for anything," he drawled, lifting a hand and running it through her bangs. She watched him lick his lips.

"You don't even know my questions."

Sasori gave a quiet scoff. "I was impressed with how well you managed today, doll-face. Tell me, did you plan for Itachi and Kisame to show up today, or was that just happy coincidence?"

Sakura blinked slowly at him, her face neutral. "What are you talking about—"

A slow smile spread across his face. "Leaving your village was a smart move to see me again—the soulmate bond is getting more and more difficult to ignore, I know. But that's not all it was, I'm betting. You knew your little blonde jinchuuriki friend wouldn't allow you out of his sight after being gone for so long, and of course he'd drag along your third, estranged teammate. And that letter you sent me about finding you . . . You knew what would happen."

Sakura didn't say anything.

"You've obviously read more than your fair share of forbidden scrolls and kept more than a few secrets for your village," Sasori went on, seemingly pleased with her silence. "You knew Itachi wouldn't be able to stay away from his little brother forever, and the Uchiha brat made no secret of desiring to kill him."

She tilted her head to the side and lowered her eyelids. "You already know the answers to your questions, puppet-boy. You obviously don't need me for anything," she parroted his words right back.

He chuckled. "Indeed, doll-face. But tell me—" Another hand came up and settled on the skin between her neck and chin, tilting her face to look directly at him, even though she already had been. He leaned in farther, until he was nose-to-nose with her and smirked. "—what're you scheming now?"

Sakura leaned the rest of the way in and pushed her mouth against his, not giving him a moment to think. His lips immediately opened under hers and Sakura twined one of her hands through his red, red hair. She pulled, just a little, until she heard that deep throated purr her soulmate could do so well. It made something unravel inside her.

Kissing him was like killing. Like that first shot of adrenaline when she landed a solid hit on someone with her inhuman strength—that moment of pure hormones and her heart beating faster and faster and _faster_.

Sakura knew she wouldn't regret this, just like she didn't regret her kills. Oh, she might feel a bit of guilt later, but she wouldn't regret any of this. Killing was for the good of her village, for the good of her teammates. And _this_ —with her soulmate's hot mouth sliding against hers like she was something holy—how could she ever regret this?

Back when she'd first started to train seriously under Tsunade and when she'd first started to go through some of the secret scrolls in the archives, Sakura had stumbled upon journals from Hashirama Senju. In them he detailed the beginning and middle of one of the many wars against the Uchiha clan, back before any treaty had been signed between the two warring clans.

Hashirama was the clan leader at the time, and he'd been able to get a spy of his own into the ranks of the Uchihas. The spy was able to smuggle messages back to the Senju clan, such as a plan the Uchihas had to invade one of the Senju camps or where they were going to get their resources from.

But Hashirama knew that if all those well laid plans the Uchihas had suddenly all failed or were intercepted, they'd figure out there was a spy among them and Hashirama would lose a great advantage. So he made a choice.

Instead of warning Senju camps that he knew were about to be ambushed, he let them be attacked and, ultimately, killed. He picked and chose where to heed his spy's warnings of ongoing Uchiha plans. He might have to choose to cut off the Uchihas' main supply of food instead of warning his comrades-in-arms about a plan to invade and kill them all in their sleep. He would choose one out of three of his armies to live. He would warn one the clan generals that he was going to be poisoned instead of telling one of the Senju elders who'd had a hand in raising him that he would be betrayed and killed in a week's time. In a way, Hashirama played Kami.

And it was necessary.

She'd learned so much from the Senju clan, both by Tsunade's hands-on training and Hashirama's war notes and private journals.

"How many of us are your pieces in this war, doll-face?" Sasori breathed against her mouth, not moving an inch away, so that she could feel his lips move against her own as he spoke. "Who will you sacrifice to win this war, I wonder?"

"Worried?" she asked, her lips curling.

"Yes."

Her eyes widened. She hadn't expected that from him—she'd expected a sarcastic or witty remark. Not a growled-out syllable while his hands tightened almost painfully on her shoulders.

"Remember our bargain, doll-face," he said lowly, his amber eyes burning into her own. "Because if you try to make yourself into a martyr, I'll make sure your puppet strings are permanently tied into knots with my own."

She reached up with the hand not still tangled in his red hair to lightly touch his cheek. Sasori's long lashes fluttered against his cheeks.

Sakura thought about the red strings of fate she'd heard about before, the connection between soulmates that supposedly always, _always_ drew them together. If not in life, then in death.

She thought about if she loved him. _Love_ always seemed like such an odd word to her, so full of meaning, so different for each person. She loved Naruto like a brother, she loved Ino like her savior, she loved Tsunade like a daughter to a mother, she loved—

Kami, she _loved_. She loved so many people and to add in someone like Sasori—someone who fate had tied so permanently to her—into that category just seemed . . . odd. Almost wrong.

 _One day,_ Sakura thought to herself, quietly, in the way she rarely allowed herself. One day she would fist her hands in Sasori's hair like this and hold his face between her palms like this and kiss him like this . . . like she already _fucking_ was and it would be without boundaries. One day she'd end up with Sasori and it would be so much easier than this, without blood underneath her fingernails and with him fully human under her palms. One day she'd love him without the consequences of the world hanging from her shoulders. Of a war that was here, _now_.

But that was a foolish thought. A foolish hope. Because without the blood under her fingernails and this puppet underneath her palms, they wouldn't be them anymore. They wouldn't be the soulmates they were now. In another life, in another world or universe, Sakura wondered if they truly ever ended up together in the end.

She whispered, "Are you sure they aren't already?"

He didn't open his eyes when she leaned in to kiss him again.

* * *

Author's Note: Merry Christmas Eve! I'm a little disappointed about the lack of response from the last chapter, but whatever. It's Christmas time.

Here's the second to last chapter! Next chapter's the end, guys! Excited? Maybe? (There _is_ character death in the next chapter, so just be warned!)

Just BTW, I know some of you are confused as to how everything adds up, but pretty much everything is explained in the next chapter. In this chapter, we found out that the third letter Sakura sent, which was to Sasori, was never replied to, but that she wrote to him about meeting up with her after she got back to the Leaf village and healed Tsunade. Sasori saw through her and realized that he was just an excuse for her to leave the village. She knew Naruto and Sasuke would follow her and knew Itachi was looking to fight with Sasuke, and so used this time to not-so-subtly tell Sasuke about Itachi's little secret when they all inevitably met up. The fact that Danzo's dead now only spices things up. (Sakura's a little schemer in this story, if you can't already tell. Everything she's doing is for a specific reason. * _hint hint wink wink_ *)

Please **REVIEW!** Call it your Christmas present to me. ;P


	11. Chapter 11

Standard disclaimer applies.

* * *

Sasori had asked her who she was going to sacrifice in this war, but it only occurred to her later on how odd it was he hadn't asked her who she was _willing_ to sacrifice in this war.

More and more she was beginning to see why the red threads of fate had tied her to him.

* * *

Sakura had pulled Kakashi aside one day and told him about Tobi.

She watched the parts of his face unobscured by his mask: his eyes for a spark of emotion, his forehead and corners of his eyes for wrinkles or stress lines. But he didn't even lower his little orange book for her. His eyes moved over the page, unseeing, and he only hummed in reply when she finished.

Sakura waiting for a moment afterwards to see if he was going to say anything to her, but then she realized that his lack of surprise wasn't because he was that good at hiding his emotions—it was because he _wasn't_ surprised.

"Oh," she said, softly. Her eyebrows rose.

" _Oh_ , indeed," Kakashi sang cheerfully, and only then did he lower his book long enough to flash her an eye crinkle. "Thank you for telling me, Sakura-chan. I won't forget it."

And then he did pause, and it was the kind of pause that spoke of something heavy about to be said.

"I miss them," he said. "Rin, I mean. And Obito."

Sakura didn't tell him it wasn't his fault. She didn't tell him everything would work out in the end, because she didn't know, and she respected him enough to not be one more of the countless others in his life who lied to him about good things that would never happen.

"She was your soulmate, wasn't she?"

Kakashi hummed in reply, fiddling with his mask. Sakura's eyes were drawn to it, and she thought again about the bright red mark on her chest.

* * *

War came without any real warning. Pein's attack on Konoha might have been the catalyst for the war treaty amongst all the nations, but the actual war didn't happen until months later.

Maybe it was a fear tactic. Make the people scamper about, making plans and holding war meetings that wouldn't actually make a difference in the end. Or maybe it was just a hubris thing.

Sakura and Tsunade knew about Madara Uchiha. You couldn't be a Senju without growing up and hearing the stories, and because Tsunade was the last living Senju and had no children, she'd passed on the stories to Sakura, the closest thing she'd ever had to a daughter.

Another thing Sakura had found during her dive into the forbidden and secret archives of the Leaf village were the journals Hashirama Senju had kept about Madara Uchiha. There were tons and tons of them, solely dedicated to the man. If Sakura hadn't known Hashirama's soulmate had been his wife, she would have thought Madara and Hashirama were soulmates.

The journals contained detailed notes and theories about the Uchihas' gifts and bloodline, their chakra styles, their genjutsus, their power. They also contained Hashirama's recordings about their final battle at the Valley of the End.

Hashirama, oddly enough, did not for one minute believe Madara was dead. He raved about it, obsessed over it. He passed down his fears and theories to his children and clan. They passed it down to their children, if not because they believed in Hashirama's fears, then as a bedtime story to warn future generations about the inherited evil of the Uchiha clan.

It was a recipe for disaster from the very beginning, Sakura thought. Growing up hearing nothing but spewed hate and bias for another clan was almost guaranteeing war sooner or later. Or, in this case, a member of the Uchiha clan betraying his own family once he saw past the inherited hatred between the clans. And how sad, Sakura thought, that a member of one of the clans could only see past such things once the Senju clan was all but extinct.

Bias and hatred on both sides were what destined the world for wars. And war was here now.

Sakura and Tsunade planned. Tsunade and Naruto, as the unsaid future Hokage, sat in on war meetings with other nations. Sakura always stood in the back, invisible, and listened in. And learned. Mei always ignored her during the meetings, but sometimes, very rarely, Sakura would catch a glimpse of amusement in the woman's eyes when her gaze passed over Sakura.

The day Madara rose up and cast his genjutsu, the members of the Akatsuki left—which were made up of Deidara, Itachi, Kisame, and Sasori; Hidan, Kakuzu, Pein, and Konan having all been killed—were there, right behind him.

Sakura hadn't expected for them to change sides at the last minute; the war council would never have trusted them and would've had them all killed on sight. Kisame was a weapon that had been sharpened with the sole intent to kill. That didn't just go away. Ultimately, the bloodthirsty side of him won out. Deidara was a boy on the verge of becoming a man who had been burned and tossed aside one too many times. Sasori was loyal, and once loyal, always loyal. Just like Sakura.

Itachi, however, wasn't present. Neither was Sasuke.

Naruto did what he did best. He talked. To Madara, to Tobi-turned-Obito. The ten-tailed failed to be summoned for lack of jinchuuriki gathered. But the genjustu . . .

Naruto, for all he goofed off, was a remarkable speaker. He could sway even the most lost of souls back to goodness and love. It was something to behold, and Sakura would never get used to it, she knew.

He was going to make a Hokage worth remembering. People were going to tell tales of glory and fame about him for a long time. He would be what inspired other young, outcast boys and girls to rise up and take the mantle, as they say.

The Akatsuki members, Sakura noticed, had enough respect for her to stay away from her, Tsunade, and Naruto. Kisame was fighting against Might Guy and Rock Lee. Deidara was laughing hysterically and going against Neji and Kiba. And Sasori was playing around with Hinata and Tenten.

And Sakura could tell he was simply playing around; he wasn't using any of his puppets or more deadly poisons. He was just dodging and every once in a while throwing an attack their way. Frankly, he looked like he was bored, casting hidden glances her way every few minutes.

Sakura, for her part, was busy with Kakashi and going against Obito. They were stuck a little ways from the main fight going on with Naruto and Madara, but Kami knew they were in their own little bubble of dramatic talks and retellings of old grudges and the importance of revenge. And, apparently, the end of the world. Great. Just fantastic.

"You killed her," Obito was saying, sneering, having lost his mask a while ago.

"I did," Kakashi said, panting.

"It's your fault she's gone—you killed your own soulmate!"

Sakura swallowed thickly, her mouth incredibly dry. She'd lost her green jounin vest a while ago, now only in her black shirt and pants, her pouch still strapped to her hip.

"You don't think I know that?" Kakashi said lowly. He fisted his hands, and Sakura could hear the beginnings of birds chirping. "You don't think I look in the mirror _every single day_ and see the evidence of that?"

And then he did something unexpected: Kakashi lifted two fingers and tugged down his black, torn mask, revealing a bright red—bright as blood, bright as sin—mark spreading up from his chest to his neck and finally resting just a little below his mouth. However he'd killed Rin had been brutal and had stained her with her own blood, all the way to her face. And Kakashi wore the evidence of that.

Obito took it all in with red, unforgiving eyes. "She could have been my soulmate," he said. "You were supposed to protect her when I couldn't!" Tears streamed down his face.

Kakashi stood there, so still, and then birds were chirping and he had a hand through Obito's chest. Both their faces were splatted with blood.

Obito's eyes were wide, and Sakura was frozen in her spot. Her legs shook and her heart hammered in her chest, and for a moment she thought Kakashi had cracked, that the loss of his soulmate by his own hand had finally broken him.

There were tears in Kakashi's eyes. "I can't be forgiven for what I've done," he said, and despite the tears streaming down his face, his voice was steady. Sane, for the moment. "But I can't let you destroy all she held dear, either. Rin wouldn't want this for you."

Obito coughed out blood. "You're a traitor," he whispered.

"I'm worse than that," Kakashi said. "I'm a soulmate killer."

* * *

Obito was dead and Kakashi didn't look like he was far behind.

The moment Kakashi had pulled his arm from Obito's body, Sakura had been there, needle in hand and pushing it into the side of his throat. Kakashi hadn't fought her, just looked at her with blank eyes— _dead eyes_ , a voice inside her said—with tears streaming down his face as they mixed with Obito's blood and ran down the red mark that stained his lower face.

"I think . . . Obito could have been my soulmate too," he grumbled out quietly right before he fell to the ground. "I think we were all destined for each other, the three of us, and all that's left is for me to join them."

"Not yet," Sakura whispered, not feeling the tears on her face. "Not just yet."

"Rin—" he whimpered, breathless.

"Can wait a little longer. She has Obito now, doesn't she? And you said it yourself: She wouldn't want all she held dear destroyed. Honor her and honor her requests." But Kakashi was already being lowered to the ground by her arms, unconscious.

Sakura looked down at him, lying next to Obito, both stained with blood, and wondered if she'd done the right thing.

* * *

Sometimes there was no such thing as a happy ending. Sometimes people just died and there was nothing to be done.

* * *

Tsunade was dead and Sakura didn't even see it happened.

One minute she was there, tearing through enemies and cracking the earth in two like the iron woman she was, the next she had her heart torn out of her chest by Madara Uchiha, the last Senju clan member finally dead.

Sakura was looking at Tsunade's body, holding back her sobs, when Mei appeared next to her, pulling her up from her mentor's body and telling her something. Something. Sakura couldn't hear what Mei was saying; there had been an explosion too close to her ears and now there was only ringing in her eardrums.

Mei slapping her hands on Sakura's cheeks and held her there, forcing her to look her in the eyes and copy her breathing. In and out. In and out. In . . . and out.

Finally, Sakura lifted her hands and pushed Mei off of her, nodding and channeling her chakra to her ears and the crack on her skull. It was bleeding heavily, and Sakura suspected she had a concussion.

Mei nodded back and was off to fight her own fight with her Mist shinobi. Sakura considered them even.

* * *

Deidara was dead and this time Sakura saw it happen.

Sasuke and Itachi finally showed up, because how could they not? Itachi was still coughing blood and Sasuke looked worn and tired, but they were both still alive and fighting back-to-back, and Sakura found some comfort in that.

Deidara was crazed—Sakura had always known that. His description in her Bingo Book that listed his crimes told her enough to deduce that. But it was the moment Deidara went after Itachi—for revenge? just because he could?—that Sasuke pushed a chidori through his chest.

Deidara, who had helped a woman find her way home, who had listened to her talk about her darling children just because he could. Deidara, who was loyal to Sasori, even though there was animosity between them. Deidara, who had snuck into her apartment and made her laugh time and again.

Deidara, who was deranged. Deidara, who bombed villages and buildings all in the name of his "art." Deidara, who was now dead.

Itachi turned back, saw his little brother's hand through Deidara's chest and nodded in thanks. Sakura swallowed thickly when she saw him cough blood into his hand and let it dribble down his chin and drip onto the ground.

Then she was in front of Itachi and handing him a vial. He looked at her, jaw tense, and Sasuke walked up to stand next to her, watching her with shrewd eyes as Itachi chugged the contents of her vial.

Itachi had to cough to get the rather disgusting contents of the vial down, even pounded on his chest a few times, but when he was done his lungs sounded clean and empty of any fluid. Sakura couldn't even smile.

Sasuke sucked in a breath through his teeth next to her as Itachi's face gained color. But when he went to place a hand on Sakura in thanks, she was already gone.

* * *

Naruto was unconscious. Things were very, very bad.

She wasn't sure when it happened, but Sakura had just finished destroying the weird creatures Madara had summoned from the earth, fighting alongside Temari and Kankuro, when she noticed the lack of noise. She was so in tune with the sounds Naruto made when fighting—the screaming, the words of love and acceptance—that when it stopped, something deep inside her panicked.

She turned to look and found Naruto on his back, though his chest was still rising and falling, albeit slowly. There was blood dribbling down his mouth and from his head.

And she got so very, _very_ angry.

Madara was busy with Itachi and Sasuke, and she could see the fury on Madara's face that the last two living Uchiha members were fighting against him like this, not with him.

"Traitors," Madara growled, one arm having been ripped off. "You bring shame to the Uchiha name!"

Sasuke scoffed and Itachi just blinked, uninterested.

Sakura watched, unmoving for a moment. Temari and Kankuro were at her sides, Gaara having fallen unconscious some time ago and hidden away. And then Sakura turned her head just enough to catch Kankuro's eye and nodded, ever so slightly. She handed him a vial, smaller than the one she'd handed Itachi. This one, however, was violet and smelled of the sweetest flower.

She saw his mouth open just before she ran.

* * *

The thing about secrets and promises was that they killed. They were necessary, of course, but ultimately they killed. If not physically, then mentally and emotionally.

* * *

Sakura knew many, many secrets.

The secrets of the village archives were imprinted into her memory. After she'd found Sasori, she started to plan. Those secrets came in handy then.

The thing about powerful shinobi was that they always had a small handful of ultimate jutsus. And almost always, they died using those ultimate jutsus. And those jutsus were recorded in the deepest village archives.

Sakura had a very good memory.

* * *

There was no big moment of power or feeling of success. There was no great moment that could really be told in awesome tales of heroics and glory. There was only relief.

Wars weren't won with big gestures. Sometimes big gestures were necessary as a distraction or to thin out the numbers of enemies, but ultimately it was one simple mistake or miscalculation on the failing side's part that was their undoing. One moment. One warrior's minute that slowed down—or maybe it sped up for the person—but in the end it was the one discombobulated minute that decided if you lived or died.

Madara's undoing was hubris. You couldn't get to be as old as he was without gaining quite some pride. His was seeing the two Uchihas in front of him as the only threat worth his time, even when surrounded against hundreds of shinobi from all great villages.

But Sakura knew many secrets, and Hashirama's journals were full of secrets about Madara Uchiha. His weaknesses, for one.

Sakura was behind Madara in six seconds. Her hand was on his naked back in the seventh. The seals slithered around her hand during the tenth.

Sakura felt her body tremble and fought to keep herself standing. This time she was the one to cough up blood.

Itachi and Sasuke were frozen, staring at her with wide eyes as Madara Uchiha—one of the most powerful and successful shinobi since the beginning of time—starting to scream during the sixteenth second.

Sakura smiled through bloody lips. She saw a flash of red out of the corner of her eye, but refused to tear her eyes away from the long black hair in front of her.

"What—You _stupid_ girl—" Madara growled, and then another seal appeared on his back. He froze, his voice gone, a glazed look in his eyes as his muscles relaxed under her hand. Twenty seconds.

" _Sakura_ —" A familiar voice in her ear, an undercurrent of panic in it, something Sakura knew only she could hear. Twenty-two seconds.

She closed her eyes and prayed. "Close your eyes, Sasori."

"No." A hand on her shoulder, one moving to the arm attached to Madara's back before falling back to his side with a slight tremble. Hot breath on her neck. Her lips parted.

"I trust you," he whispered into her ear, directly behind her so that her back was flush with his chest. She could feel every grove, every dip of his body. Her hand was beginning to go numb. Cold. She was cold. Forty-seven seconds.

"But if you die, doll-face," Sasori said, lips brushing against her earlobe, tracing down the back of her neck as he swiped her hair to the side, kissed the skin there. "I will chain you to my side for the next century, your feelings be damned." Fifty-five seconds.

Sakura swallowed thickly, a tear leaking out of her eye as more blood dripped down her chin. Sixty seconds.

Then she released her diamond shaped seal.

* * *

This was her greatest secret.

The Senju and Uchiha clans warred with each other for decades before Hashirama and Madara were even born. Each clan came up with impossibly cruel methods to get the upper hand on the other. No one was innocent during those fights. No one was right or good. It was just war. Just war, nothing more.

 _Stay or go_ , Tsunade had told Sakura once she had perfected the technique. _Don't hesitate. You're most definitely going to die and you cannot hesitate. There's nothing worse than a meaningless death._

Wake up.

 _Wake up_ , the voice deep inside her whispered, the part of her that had woken up deep inside a cave so long ago.

The Senju clan had found a loophole to the Uchiha bloodline. A blood jutsu so horrid that it had been outlawed by the clan that created it. The secret, forbidden jutsu was to be locked away in the village archives, never to be seen again.

The thing about clan bloodlines was that they tended to carry gifts, but to keep those gifts in future children the clan married inside the clan. And after a while there was no one to marry who wasn't somehow related to you. Inbreeding could lead to insanity, miscarriages, and mental or physical disorders. It would also lead to the loss of those bloodline gifts.

The jutsu the Senju clan outlawed was the ability to take all the parts inside a Uchiha that were made up of—however small it might be—inbreeding and multiply them by thousands and thousands. All the gene mutations, however subtle or unnoticeable they might be, were maximized. It was an impossibly difficult medical jutsu to learn.

The end result was the loss of all mental and physical capabilities, the loss of all use of chakra and bloodline gifts, and the loss of _self_. The problem, however, was that the jutsu caster also experienced all these same symptoms.

In other words, it was a suicide jutsu.

The jutsu itself didn't actually kill the castor or the person it was being casted upon, but once it was cast, the two people were linked. Both would be unable to be more than an empty shell of themselves, and so something else would have to be the actual killing blow.

Sakura wasn't a Senju, though, and so she didn't have the natural chakra reserves those of that bloodline already had. But Tsunade was a Senju and she was her mentor, and so she taught her how to conceal her chakra over time in her diamond seal. And maybe, _maybe_ it would work.

Kami, she hoped it worked.

* * *

Someone blonde was lying beside her, eyes closed and unconscious. She reached deep inside herself and found the name _Ino_ attached to that hair, lovely as it was. The blonde one's hands were on her chest and it felt like she was breathing _into_ her.

 _Forehead_.

She tried to focus, but all she wanted was to fall back into the darkness. She knew she should be scared of . . . something. She should be worried, at the very least. But there was nothing. _Nothingnothingnothingnothing_. She was a blank slate, and she found it wasn't the worst thing in the world.

 _Stop that, forehead. You made me promise, you bitch. I've upheld my part of our bargain; now it's your turn._

Something red floated in and out of her sight, but it was so bleary. She just wanted to close her eyes and _forget_.

 _I swear to Kami— You so owe me for dealing with this asshole who calls himself your soulmate. We're talking about that later, by the way. You're supposed to tell your best friend about these things—like finding out your soulmate is a little shit._

Something brown covered her line of sight, or what was left of it. A face was attached to it with smears of purple paint on it.

Her mouth was being opened and something sweet was being poured down it. She swallowed on reflex. Then there was a burning in her chest, and Sakura had enough left of herself to scream.

 _Forehead—_

 _Sakura—oh, Kami—_

And she screamed and she screamed and she screamed. The blonde one wouldn't let her go, had her hands dug deep inside her mind, pulling and tugging at her. She wouldn't let her fall into the darkness and she _hated_ her for it, for this unrelenting pain and—

 _I'm so sorry—_

 _Just a bit more, just hold on for a little longer—_

The redheaded one was opened and closing his mouth rapidly, but she couldn't hear him over her own screams. He tore open his shirt and there was red liquid leaking out of the hole in his chest in a steady stream—

Panic: _that_ was the look on his face.

She was so confused, and so in pain. She tugged harder on the blonde one's grasp but she just wouldn't _let her fucking go_ —

Something was being shoved inside her. Something _wrong_ was inside her and the brown haired one looked _horrified_ but kept on pushing it into her chest and the redheaded one was holding her head between his hands and saying something over and over and over—

 _Sakura—_

 _—_ _I love you—_

 _—_ _so sorry—_

She didn't know whose voice she was hearing anymore, but the pain was so great she found she simply didn't care all that much as she fell into the everlasting, peaceful darkness.

* * *

 _I'll find you_ , the redheaded one growled, face twisted with rage and panic. _Wherever you go, my soul will find yours, in this life or the next._

* * *

When Sakura woke up, she was alone.

She was lying on her back in a room that was not her own. She didn't have a moment where she remembered the war, the deaths, because she woke up remembering. Sakura was sure that even in her death she would remember the war.

When she sat up, nothing hurt. That was her first clue her plan had worked.

The second was when her soulmate came barreling into the room, eyes wide as they immediately locked onto her.

Sakura blinked. "Hi."

Sasori stared.

She cleared her throat. "I think we've done this before, but if you need help, now is when you make a sassy and sarcastic remark about—"

And then he was on her, pinning her to the bed. His hair fell over his face and she could tell he hadn't brushed it in a while.

Sakura swallowed. "Tell me what happened."

Sasori sucked in a breath. "You're immortal."

"Yeah, I got that."

He closed his eyes tightly and breathed long and slow. "You almost died and you're being _sassy_ —"

"You love me."

His eyes flew open. She cleared her throat.

"I love you too, by the way. Just thought you should know."

He didn't move, didn't blink. Sakura rolled her eyes and moved her one free hand to her chest. She felt skin and muscle and ribs. But when she sent a surge of chakra through her body—something she'd done a thousand times before to check for any injuries—she found a different heartbeat.

Sakura smiled, slow and long. She and Kankuro were even now.

"You—" Sasori seemed to struggle for words, his mouth opening and closing.

She blinked innocently at him. "I think this is where you wax poetry about how much you love me. Haikus are perfectly okay."

His mouth morphed into a sneer. "You insufferable little—"

" _Your_ insufferable little ball of sunshine," she cooed at him. "Yes, I know."

"Maybe you're the one who should wax poetry about _me_ ," he grumped.

"I'm crap at poetry, puppet-boy."

He kissed her then. She wrapped her arms around him and spun them around so she was on top. He grunted in surprise and she grinned down at him, rolling her hips. A surprised groan reverberated low in his throat at that and his hands clenched hard on her hips instinctively. His eyes were hooded and gleaming with renewed interest of her body in ways that had nothing to do with the new heart in her chest.

The aftermath of the war could wait.

* * *

"You did it," Sasori said sometime later. "Your little scheme worked. Ino did her mind thing and held onto you while Kankuro pushed my heart into you."

Sakura smiled, softly. She lifted the spoon to her mouth when Sasori narrowed his eyes at her. He'd been stuffing her full of as much food as possible ever since she woke up. She'd been asleep for nearly a week, it seemed, and her soulmate had been having more than a few conniptions about her health.

"I can't believe you managed to make yourself immortal and didn't even let me make you into a puppet," he grumped. She had a feeling he'd be pouting for some time about that. It was a good thing they had nothing but time.

Ino's bloodline gift was what she'd used in the chunin exam during their fight. Her promise to Sakura had been about using her gift on Sakura should she be close to death, though Sakura had never given her specifics on when/if this would happen. So she'd entered Sakura's mind before she could die after Sakura had cast her jutsu on Madara and held onto what was left of her conscious, her sense of self.

Sakura had first spoken to Kankuro about the possibility of swapping a failing heart with a beating one back when Sasori told her he'd managed to hide his heart and still live while it was outside his body. He'd told her about his experiments for his puppet body and keeping his heart attached to his body without the actual _physical_ attachment. And if it had worked for her soulmate, maybe she could just . . . alter his methods a bit to fit her needs.

She had no reason to think it would work. Her heart was doomed to fail the second she'd cast her suicide jutsu. But Sasori was her soulmate, and by fate his heart belonged to her. The fact that it was literally in her chest now was moot.

The problem, of course, was that in order to actually kill Madara and not just make him an unresponsive vegetable would be if Sakura was killed while the jutsu was still linking them.

"You poisoned yourself," Sasori had said angrily, once he realized what she'd done. His nails cast groves into the wood of the table. "I cannot _believe_ you—"

"It was the flower," Sakura had said calmly, still more than slightly amazed her plan had actually worked. The plan she'd been working on for so long now. "The violet one from my mission you tagged along for. I just made it into liquid form and gave it to Kankuro to kill me with, so that the heart he took out of my body would have the poison in it, still killing Madara, but when he put in your heart, it would be healthy. My seal took care of any residual poison in my body after that."

So long as the heart she'd cast the jutsu with—her heart—died, Madara would die. The loophole—and there was _always_ a loophole—in the jutsu was that _Sakura_ didn't actually have to die, only her heart did.

Now, Sasori said, "Your blonde jinchuuriki is alive." He was still watching her to make sure she was eating. This was her third bowl. "He's Hokage now."

Sakura flinched at the reminder of Tsunade's death. That was a wound that would take some time to heal. "And the others?"

"The sand siblings are all fine. Ino's fine. Kisame's fine, though pretty banged up—those two green spandex men were surprisingly good." Sasori shuddered at the memory of those ' _two green spandex men_.'

"The Uchiha brothers are fine, though if you want to keep Itachi alive you're going to have to keep giving him whatever disgusting concoction you gave him before."

She eyed him. "Who's dead?"

"Madara, obviously." Sasori shifted in his seat. "Deidara's dead, though you saw that."

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

He shrugged, but Sakura didn't think for a second he didn't care just the tiniest bit.

"I don't know about the rest of your friends." Sasori sighed quietly. "Kakashi Hatake, though, I know is alive."

"But?"

He looked at her. "He's not doing very well."

Sakura nodded, knowing there wasn't much anyone could do for him.

"Your blonde jinchuuriki is putting him to work," he said. "Having him repair the village and giving him a position to help deal with the transition to Hokage. He's good at meetings, or so I've been told."

Sakura was quiet for a minute. She pushed away her half-eaten third bowl of soup of the day and ignored how Sasori pouted.

She looked towards a window and saw nothing but green land outside. She'd have to get the details out of him as to where they were; Sakura didn't recognize it. "And the war council? The leaders of the other lands?"

Sasori hummed thoughtfully. "The war treaty that was enacted had a hidden clause," he said lowly. "Apparently no one bothered to read the fine print about how all the village leaders are responsible to pay a certain amount of reconstruction funds to any village damaged during the war."

He paused long enough that Sakura turned just enough to look at him out of the corner of her eye. His amber eyes gleamed with amusement and maybe a little appreciation.

"And as it turns out, none of the other villages obtained any real damages from the war. Except Konoha."

"Oh?" Sakura asked nonchalantly. "But the damage was obtained before the war treaty was signed."

It was then Sasori laughed. " _Apparently_ the war treaty also stated in a very subtle way that the declaration of war from Madara was initiated with Pein's attack, since Pein was working under him."

"Ah. How nice."

He smirked at her. "You scare me sometimes, doll-face."

She let her lips curl up and turned to look back out the window. She caught sight of a golden bird with blue eyes. It chirped bossily at her. "Now what?"

Sasori got up and walked around to her side of the table, kneeled in front of her. The sunlight streaming through the window caught in his red hair, bringing out the lighter strands and reflecting off his amber eyes, a ring of spun gold around the irises. Sakura's breath hitched, just slightly, at how beautiful he was.

"I believe I told you I would chain you to me for the next century, doll-face."

Sakura laughed. "That was only if I died. I didn't _technically_ die."

"We had a bargain."

"That is now moot."

"I could always make you."

She smiled and her green eyes flashed. Sakura felt Sasori's heart in her chest beat out a steady, warm rhythm. She'd seen the scar, one long vertical line between her breasts in the middle of the red stain from where she'd crushed the other half of her soulmate's heart. Kankuro had done a good job in pushing it in her and sowing her back up.

"Or," she purred. "You could always just try to convince me."

"Oh, doll-face," Sasori purred right back, leaning in to place his chin atop her knee, looking up at her through hooded eyes. Fire and promises danced there. "It would be my _pleasure_."

* * *

Author's Note: Annddddd that's all folks! **The End** , as they say.

If it wasn't clear enough on how everything adds up, the main things are that Sakura found a forbidden jutsu from the Senju clan that could basically make a Uchiha into a living vegetable. The bad thing, however, was that it would do the same thing to the caster. So Sakura casts this jutsu, but to keep her sense of self and awareness, she had Ino promise her that she'd do her special jutsu thing where she invades an enemy's mind, only in this case it was so she could keep Sakura from loosing her mind. While this is happening, Kankuro is giving Sakura the poison she'd handed him before, which if you remember from so many chapters ago, was the liquid form of the very poisonous flower Sakura had been researching. That's why the vial was violet and sweet smelling, as was the flower. Obviously, this liquid form of the flower will kill Sakura and in turn kill Madara, but since Sakura had given Kankuro Sasori's heart before, he was able to cut out her poisoned heart and replace it with Sasori's heart. This only works because technically Sasori and Sakura are tied together because of the soulmate bond, which is why I kept on talking about how they were tied together. Sakura had no idea if her plan would work, and that's why she only made Kankuro and Ino promise her to do these things for her without spelling out the exact details for them.

Obviously, Sakura was a little scheming schemer who schemes.

(If you guys have read any of my stories, you may have noticed that I don't really do nice, happy endings. This is because I don't believe in them. I grew up in a military family with a history buff of a father who owns one too many war books and who greatly enjoys talking about WWII. And every other war, to be honest, but especially WWII.

Some of you have said that Sakura seemed a little heartless in this story, but that's, quite frankly, what you have to be like in a war. During WWII the English had—essentially—created the first ever computer that could break Enigma, which was how the Germans communicated to each other in code. The code, however, changed every night at midnight, so even when you have a room full of the brightest minds working on breaking this very complicated code, all that work goes out the window at midnight. But once the code was broken, the English suddenly know all the plans the Germans are making, such as where they're going to be bombing next, what sea vessels they know the locations of, etc, etc, . . .

The problem with this, of course, is that if suddenly all those plans the Germans are giving through their "unbreakable code" all suddenly fail, they're going to realize their enemies have cracked the code and change their methods. If this happened, all that progress in breaking their code will be pointless.

What basically happened was that Churchill looked at all the orders the Germans are giving, all their attacks, and picks and chooses which to let happen. There are whole cities that were carpet bombed to smithereens that Churchill knew about long before they happened. There were ships that contained hundreds of their own soldiers that they knew were going to be attacked and no warning was given, because Churchill was basically playing a game of chess with his own men on what players in the game needed to be saved and which could be sacrificed. And he was right to do that, because it was smart, and the Allies won the war in the end. So, no, Sakura isn't heartless; she'd just pragmatic. You don't win wars with a bleeding heart.)

Please **REVIEW**! I have mixed feelings about this story. I might— _might_ —do a sort of epilogue to this story, but I was maybe thinking about doing it for the whole KakashixRinxObito thing I ever so slightly eluded to here? This is a very big _maybe_ , guys. Or maybe something with Sakura and Sasori. IDK.

The other thing is that y'all might see a new story soon. I've been seriously thinking about a SakuraxItachi story lately, and I'm going back and forth between a complete sociopath!Itachi who maybe sorta kills people and Sakura is the not-gonna-happen victim who really just couldn't give two shits about what he wants. Or, the other idea is something relating to a faerie!Sakura and Itachi. Or maybe a combination, which is entirely possible. I don't even know, so y'all tell me what ya want to see. ;P

Thank you all for the amazing support for this story and all the others I've written. I wouldn't be so quick to update or even post new stories if it wasn't for all the kind words and responses I've gotten.


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